Transgender Autobiography I

Writing our own stories in the form of autobiography is one way we can relate our experience to others, feel more secure in our own personal history (by tying it together in narrative), and document our place in history. I have a lot to say about this topic and will write more. But first, a friend at PFLAG forwarded this information to me:

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Transgender and Transsexual Autobiography

For the last 75 years, transgender and  Transsexual Autobiographies have told the stories of their authors’ lives and appealed for greater acceptance of transgender people. Autobiography remains one of the most important genres of transgender literary expression.
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/autobio_transsexual.html

Kate Bornstein (b. 1948) is one of the best known transgender activists in America. Her book “Gender Outlaw” (1994), which is part autobiography, part manifesto, and part fashion guide, contributed to the political mobilization of transsexuals.
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/bornstein_k.html

Roberta Close (b. 1964), a Brazilian model and entertainer, was proclaimed “The World’s Most Beautiful Model” in a 1984 tabloid headline. Her autobiography, “Much Pleasure, Roberta Close” (1998), raised eyebrows because of her claim to have been involved with many internationally famous male celebrities.
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/close_r.html

Michael Dillon (1915-1962) was the first person to transition both hormonally and surgically from female to male. Dillon’s unpublished autobiography was rediscovered by English journalist Liz Hodgkinson and served as an important source for her book “Michael Née Laura” (1989) and a more recent biography by Pagan Kennedy entitled “The First Man-Made Man” (2007).
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/dillon_m_ssh.html

Lili Elbe (1886-1931) was among the world’s first post-operative male-to-female transsexuals. Her letters and diaries were compiled into “Man Into Woman” (1933), one of the first popular books to draw a distinction between homosexuality and transsexuality.
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/elbe_l.html

Leslie Feinberg (b. 1949) is a pioneering transgender activist, historian, and writer. The main character of Feinberg’s novel “Stone Butch Blues” (1993) shares so many similarities with the book’s author that many consider it semi-autobiographical.
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/feinberg_l.html

Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) was the first person to undergo a a sex-change operation that was highly publicized in the United States. Her book “Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography” (1967) was adapted for a film released in 1970.
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/jorgensen_c.html

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (1928-2002) was an East German preservationist and museum founder. Her autobiography, “I Am My Own Wife” (1992), tells the story of her own life as well as that of a whole generation of East German homosexuals who faced persecution first from the Nazis and then from the Communists.
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/mahlsdorf_c.html
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/nazism_holocaust.html

Jan Morris (b. 1926), a prolific Anglo-Welsh journalist, historian, and travel writer, was among the first transsexuals to tell her story publicly in a memoir. She dedicated “Conundrum” (1974) “to all who are suffering still in the same solitary and unsought cause.”
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/morris_j.html

Renee Richards (b. 1934), a transsexual tennis player, successfully sued the United States Tennis Association so that she could compete in the U.S. Women’s Open. Her autobiography, “Second Serve” (1986), reveals the details of her troubled childhood as well as her adult successes in tennis and as an eye surgeon.
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/richards_r.html

______________________________

QUIZ: Transgender Autobiography

Test your knowledge of Transgender Autobiography:
http://www.glbtq.com/quiz/quiz.php/autobio_trans.html

VISIT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY FOR THESE BOOKS! IF THEY DON’T HAVE WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR, MAKE A BIG STINK (or a small stink). But really–support your local libraries. How else will shy kids in the closet learn about gay stuff?

write to seventeen

i was recently informed of an article in Seventeen via Pam’s House Blend about a girl who was dating a boy intensely for a while only to discover he was “really” a girl/female/etc. feel free to read this article for yourself. and maybe the replies on pam’s house blend to get an idea of the range of responses. i wrote an email to the editor. maybe you want to also?

i think it’s shitty that this girl dated this guy for so long and didn’t know such an important part about his history. that can be really jarring to find out anything big-deal like that so far into a relationship. and it’s totally shitty that the way she found out about him was when she called the cops on him for assaulting her. shitty all around.

i’ll include my letter to the editor here:

I am writing in response to the article “My Boyfriend Turned Out To Be A Girl!” I was born female and even grew up reading my older sister’s Seventeen magazines. Now, I live as a man and unless I told you otherwise, you would never know I spent the first 18 years of my life as a girl. I personally would not have kept such a big part of my life from someone I was so close with. But, the decision to come out as transgender is my decision and mine alone. I am disappointed that this article portrays transgender men as deceitful creeps who go around breaking girls’ hearts. You know what? I’ve broken a few hearts. I’ve lied about my past to protect myself. I’ve avoided coming out because I just didn’t feel like talking about something so personal. It’s my body and my life after all. But I must speak out against misleading and potentially harmful representations of transgender people. Please apologize for your sensationalist article. Better yet–why not write an article about loving partners of transgender people? Or the hardships transgender teens face in schools? Why not focus on teens overcoming relationship challenges with honesty and mutual respect?

In truth, (I signed my name)

i guess this makes me sound kind of shitty in a way too, because sometimes i’ve felt better not letting people know about me being trans when i’m flirting with them. but i have problems with this assumption that if a person is trans and it’s not obvious to someone, it’s like–”you’d better reveal the TRUTH about you so you aren’t deceiving anyone who THINKS you are this but in REALITY…” blah blah blah.

do you tell everyone you meet in your life right off the bat that you are: gay, a parent, in a relationship, hiv+, a backstreet boy fan, really into stamp collecting, an abuse survivor, an alcoholic, from new jersey, on welfare, a diabetic, a big jerk? does that make that less-than-perfectly-honest interaction any less real? does revealing someone like that make you more real? more honest? i don’t know. all i know is i spent many hours in trains the first summer i started transition and i thought a lot about what i assumed about every person i saw outside of that moment. i thought a lot about what they thought of me.

i’m going to share a story my grandmother told me. this woman she knows is a writer and she spends a lot of time thinking up elaborate stories and background information about the people she sees in everyday life. any writer practicing character development might do this. anyone with an imaginative mind. or a day dreamer. she thinks these things a lot when she’s driving. stuck in traffic. one day she sees a couple the car ahead of her. the man is driving, talking emphatically, expressively. using his hands. the woman, with long flowing blond hair sits perfectly still, responding in no way to the man. the writer thinks: they must have a problem in their relationship. the man is talking frankly, but sensitively about the woman’s daughter (his daughter-in-law). she has an eating disorder and it’s very apparent. you should be doing something about it, as her mother, he tells her. she sits in stone silence, totally defeated by the situation, angry at him for even bringing it up. it goes on and on. then the “woman” moves and the writer realizes the being in the passenger seat has actually been a golden retriever this whole time.

 

please support One Kalamazoo

if you are able, please support One Kalamazoo’s work by sending a financial contribution here. One Kalamazoo is working to counteract an appallingly transphobic campaign to get the people to vote AGAINST a non-discrimination bill that protects transgender people from discrimination in housing and employment (we need this!). this is an example of one campaign flyer. if this doesn’t make you want to raise hell, at least consider sending a few bucks so One Kalamazoo can pay a staff member for one month of tough work. the thing is, kalamazoo’s elected officials have already voted twice in favor of a non-discrimination bill. so why use misinformation, scare tactics, and outright terrible fucking bullshit to get voters to keep folks down, closeted, and fearful. also, check out trystan’s fundraising video.

he’s great and so is this cause.

Update

tonight i updated various pages, especially why this blog? why me? and conferences 2009-2010. fidgeting around with the other pages and links…

feel free to contact me with questions, suggestions or to tell me a link doesn’t work.

testosterone PART !

influenced by my first season of working and living on an organic farm, i’m beginning to question WHAT is in the injectable testosterone medication i use, WHO makes it, HOW the ingredients are grown, processed, etc., HOW the pharmaceutical and medical industry perceived folks like me who use testosterone for a reason not listed in any general info about the medication…

one of my main concerns is that this form of testosterone is suspended in sterile oil, namely, cottonseed oil. and because cotton is not a food product, i am worried about the (over)use of pesticides and harsh growing techniques used to produce this product, and also what processing does to the oil, and what i could be potentially injecting directly into my body along with the testosterone.

my search started by contacting a number of local compounding pharmacies. i told them i was looking to find a pharmacy that could essentially splice testosterone with a less harmful oil (like sesame, or even, by gosh! an organic one) but none of the places i contacted did sterile (i.e. injectable oils). two places mentioned the transdermal testosterone patch, which i have some issues with, namely, the dosage (too low?) and the risk of transmission (rubbing off) to people who don’t want those extra hormones in their body. i don’t know what the big draw is about the patch. i guess if i had a big problem with needles and wasn’t in a long-term-relationship i might consider it. but what kind of weird shit is in the transdermal stuff anyway?

the one place i found that compounds sterile oils is in ohio but they don’t deliver over state lines. AND, apparently, they couldn’t splice cottonseed or sesame oil with testosterone because that product already exists on the market and that would be counter to pharmaceutical giants making all their money.

just now, i was looking over the wiki page for cottonseed oil and found three interesting things:
1. most of the references on the website are from the national cottonseed products association
2. cottonseed oils are derived from genetically modified plants (one of the four top global GMO crops along with soy, corn and rapeseed [canola])
3. the cottonseed plant contains gossypol, which has been used as a male oral contraceptive in china. one of the reasons why cottonseed oil is so processed is to remove this offending by-product.

i’m a little put at ease because of how totally “clean” cottonseed oil comes out after processing. but overly-processed foods freak me out in general.

anyway–after little luck with compounding pharmacies, i contacted pfizer and watson, the maufacturers of name brand testosterone (depo-testosterone) and generic testosterone cypionate, respectively. (merck makes delatestryl, which is a different ester of testosterone–enanthate)

watson is unable to give me any information about who supplies the ingredients of their products. (wack!). they got back to me pretty quick, though, and relayed a statement from their phantom suppliers who say the ingredients are FDA regulated, tested annually or bi-annually for impurities and harmful additives and that processing the material removes harmful additives. i want to get this in writing.

my next course of action is to compile info about testosterone for easy reading here, follow up on these ingredient inquiries, and gripe about the difficulty in obtaining this medication as a transperson…

gender identity (disorder)

i received an enewsletter from pflag which mentioned last months apa conference in san francisco. i’ve been hearing a lot about the argument to remove gender identity disorder (gid) from the diagnostic and statistical manual (dsm) of diseases and disorders.
here’s a link to an article about the conference.
i attended the transgender health conference in philly two years ago when pauline park was the keynote speaker and i remember that her speech really called me to action about health care and the gid diagnosis.
there are a lot of things wrong with health care in general and there’s a great need for affordable and comprehensive health care for LGBT folks too. but one thing specific to transgender people (if they are seeking physical transition or if they just want psychiatric help in negotiating a really tough space) is the diagnosis of gender identity disorder. [not to mention the vast number of gay folks and differently-gendered folks who have been stigmatized for their gender expression under this diagnosis...]

i don’t think gid should be used as a means of punishment for queer folks. i don’t think being transgender or questioning one’s gender warrants having a disorder. i do think there should be standards for people who wish to transition and i think health professionals should live up to those standards. i do think there are negative psychological symptoms of being a queer or trans person in this world. these symptoms may manifest as anxiety, depression, addiction, etc. these symptoms are possible to treat. sometimes what helps is transition itself. i think we need to see transgender as a valid way of being. i believe it is possible to be transgender and happy.

i’d like to include a longer quote from pauline park borrowed from an interview she did with feministing.com:

Gender identity disorder was introduced into the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1974. At the same time the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM, removed homosexuality. This is not a coincidence.

Gender identity disorder, sometimes called gender dysphoria, is a psychiatric diagnosis which suggests that all transgendered people are mentally ill. As I like to say, I don’t have a gender identity disorder; I think society has a gender identity disorder.

So, my work is informed by a different conception of sex and gender than the one that currently governs society. I think we need to see that transgender is simply a natural variance in gender identity and expression.

I see my work not as being about helping a small number of post-op transsexuals fit more comfortably in existing boxes, but rather, helping all of us break out of these boxes so we can all live lives free of discrimination and violence related to gender identity and expression.

LGBT Equality and Justice Day APRIL 28

Got an email from TLDEF today about this event in ALBANY, NY.

On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, join hundreds of New Yorkers who will be traveling to Albany to help win transgender non-discrimination protections, safe schools for LGBT youth, marriage equality and more funding for our community’s health and human services needs.

TLDEF will be co-sponsoring this event with the Empire State Pride Agenda

Register now if you want to go!

Update: New page added today

Check out The Basics: Start Here. Most of this information has been gathered together from the Trans 101 lectures I have done. If you think I need to add something or you have a comment on how I’ve defined something, please let me know.

Update

Currently adding to the resources page.

March 4 2009

At the end of this month I will give a lecture at Pace University, Pleasantville, NY to the students in the course, Graduate Program in Counseling Psychology. This is the second or third time I have lectured for this course and the fourth or fifth time for this professor. I use a combination of a PowerPoint presentation, handouts and telling my story. I really like it when students ask tough questions. Usually, the students will submit a few questions each the week before the lecture and I get to read them anonymously and see what topics are most interesting to them. I think the professor does a great job to prepare the class before the lecture by showing movies, assigning relevant reading and not giving the students too much information about me.

I am currently working on a zine to hand out for the class. I think it will be more interesting than just a sheet of paper with some resources on it and I can also print out a bunch of extras and have it on hand for other lectures or for anyone else who would want one. This would be my first zine I did all by myself. Two years ago my ex-girlfriend and I made a zine for the Gender Studies Program at SUNY Purchase College. It was great fun and we packed a lot of information into it.