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Almost like a real person!

piny

Feministe regular Holly alerted me to a radio broadcast (featuring herself) about Ruby Ordenana (the transwoman who was murdered in San Francisco on March 16 of this year). The discussion also covers hate-crimes laws–efficacy and disparate impact.

Here’s a link to the segment.

Here’s a link to the entire broadcast (the Ordenana segment is near the end).

She also sent me a link to a post on her livejournal about family expectations and the steep degradation thereof upon her transition. Apparently, surviving Ruby Ordenana is a solid accomplishment for Holly now that she is a transwoman:

But still, what it adds up to is this: my family’s greatest hope for me is that I can lead a happy, healthy life. That’s it. Of course it’s a wonderful hope, but it’s strangely unspecific, almost unambitious. That was never the simple hope that anyone had for me before I came out; it was always more grand, not just about survival and being simply happy, but about things I wanted to do with my life. Creative aspirations, places I wanted to go, career goals, and yeah, falling in love, having kids.

Now I feel like, for some people at least, my life has flattened into this weird two-dimensional shape where it’s just about whether I can cope with this thing they don’t understand and can’t quite relate to, but gosh it seems so difficult to be you. I don’t want to compare my experiences too directly, but I’m sure people who have gone through significant mental or physical illness can relate even more strongly than I can to this kind of thing, as can disabled people. It’s a miracle that you can get around and have a smile on your face, and live almost like a normal person! I don’t think I have it that bad, but there is still a strong tinge of that from some quarters of my life: wow, it’s amazing, you’re so brave, and you actually dated someone too, it’s almost like you’re a normal person! Have some faith, I want to say. I can do anything you expected me to do back when you really just did assume I was a normal person. Yeah, I date people, and you don’t need to cry with relief and happiness when it happens. (heathergalaxy, much to my chagrin, had to experience this from my dad a few years ago when I brought her home…) Nobody ever is going to say to me, well when are you going to find someone and settle down and have some kids, huh? The status quo expectation, as much as people might want to avoid talking about it, is that I get to be a lonely old spinster.

So I’ve encountered this many many times. In fact, it happened to me. When I came out as attracted to girls, my mother was anxious that I not close myself off to heterosexual opportunities, as though lesbianism or even same-gender exploration represented a likelihood of heartache and loneliness that heterosexuality never would. Even for a fifteen-year-old girl. When I came out as trans, my parents’ understanding of my partnering options morphed into, “completely fucked.” They had no idea how someone might relate to their child the transsexual as a sexual creature and romantic interest, probably because they had no template for healthy sexual and romantic attraction toward transgendered people. (Or, indeed, for a transperson who seemed healthy, satisfied, and dignified in terms of their sexuality.) And it’s true: predatory, pathetic, paraphilic, doomed: it’s very difficult to find any representation of transpeople as attractive people who have successful relationships. Love may transcend transgender, and lust may overlook it, but being transgendered is almost never portrayed as a positive, attractive quality in a partner–its only cachet is in the context of the sexual fugue state.

It’s absolutely true that being transgendered or transsexual can make it difficult to find love, but the part transphobia plays in that isn’t always explored. Indeed, pop culture tends to portray violent rejection or degradation of transwomen in much the same way it portrays misogynist sexualization of women: as inevitable and natural as the tides. The idea that dehumanization is an active, collaborative, community-wide process doesn’t get much play, nor the inevitable conclusion: that the idea of transwomen as horribly inadequate sexual and romantic partners requires constant upkeep in order to retain its credibility. But I have the strong suspicion that lack of desire for transpeople is the real problem–after all, the reaction to transpeople can scarcely ever be characterized as indifference. Indeed, when I identified and presented as a transman, and sought out partners as one, my biggest problem was not lack of attention but inappropriate attention. Plenty of people wanted me; few of them respected me.

20 thoughts on Almost like a real person!

  1. oh, christ, yes. “We, we just want you to be…happy…and, and safe” (chin quivers, burst into tears).

    can I just mention, pettily, how pissed off I still am at Sandra Scoppettone? for writing teen books that had Tragic Ends for gay characters, which I read as an impressionable and deeply neurotic junior-high-er, and then I grew up and found out -she- was gay?

  2. anyway, yeah: there are umpteen ways in which “objectification” happens, aren’t there. “Poor poor thing” might actually be one of the less attractive options. Well, depending on who you ask.

  3. ‘you brave thing you’ and ‘oh my, you survived *beyond all reason!*’ *eyes agog* are less attractive options as well, but transpeople systematically fail to see the inherrent transphobia. We need understanding and attention, but that’s just not the right kind. Way to go piny!

  4. I am reminded of what my wife told me about our first correspondence; that her trepidation was mitigated by the fact that I didn’t ask about her anatomy. To me, such inquires would denote an objectification bordering on schizophrenic sadism; but from her accounts, it was the norm.

    A lack of respect for another is indicative of contempt for one’s self; the notion that transpeople are unworthy of human compassion and love demonstrates the kind of depravity inherent in many individuals notions of a “normal” relationship.

    My wife’s transsexuality enhances her natural attractiveness; it augments her beauty with a gentle, gorgeous empathy that I find irresistible. Would that the culture at large could forgo their cherished ignorance long enough to appreciate the beauty of personal integrity.

  5. It’s odd that reading this made me think about reactions to my asexuality. My mom was horrified and wishes I was a lesbian. At least then I could be “close to normal.” I don’t even bother trying to look for platonic relationships because … well, the over-curiosity and treating me like an anomaly and a project to FIX gets tiresome. The “how far can I go” game.

    I had a conversation about sex and gender once with a friend. We determined that it was almost ok to be gay, sorta ok to be bi, and anything else is like … the plague.

  6. As much as I’ve sometimes eye-rolled over my mother’s expectations of me (eg, planning out while I was still a teenager how I could be a “career woman” and raise kids the way she thinks is best, and telling me how happy she was that I was going to college early, because it would give me more time to establish myself professionally before I had kids), it’s such a relief that after I came out to her, she still kept talking about her expectations of grandkids. It made me feel like she still saw me as the same person, as a normal person.
    I’ve joked to my friends that I could tell my mother anything new (or new to her) about myself, and the first thing she’d ask would be “You’re still going to have kids, right?”. It makes me wonder how she’d take it if I didn’t want to have kids, but I think that my mom is perceptive enough that she wouldn’t be asking those questions if I hadn’t been very rah-rah about kids for pretty much my entire life.

  7. I think I was lucky.

    my family’s mom’s greatest hope for me is that I can lead a happy, healthy life.

    That was it. No, really. Before I came out, after I came out, before surgery, after surgery, all of it. I guess I can see how it would be a disappointment if it were a new message said in a resigned tone, but for me it was always there. I felt loved, not pushed, like a person, not a letdown.

    Like I said, pretty lucky.

  8. Oh, likewise. That’s always been the strongest message from my family, that they don’t care about what we do or who we do it with, as long as we’re healthy and happy. (See my full post for more rather personal details from me, as well as an ex of mine, on why the lack of specificity is a bit like lip service, though.) I guess it’s somewhat hard to explain the “flattening” effect in which just managing to get by and find some happiness becomes a specific end, one where the expectation is that you might barely eke it up there, instead of a more “three-dimensional” version in which my parents could actually imagine all sorts of particular ways and exciting details of happiness and health. It definitely feels like lowered expectations, and I think that some previous commenters are right when

    I originally meant to write that whole post about queer families and expectations in general, since it stemmed from a conversation I was having with two other sisters who are close friends of mine, and how expectations of which of them was going to be the “carry on the family line” sister shifted based on who they were dating, etc. (Although now that I think about it, it was the older sister who carried most of the pressure due to being the older one, and the same used to be true in my case, I’m also the oldest of three sisters.) Anyway, I guess the post ended up being more about trans stuff since that particular coming-out shaped so much of my experiences with this, and from talking with some others it does seem like expectations have shifted in terms of how people can narrativize / create an imaginary vision of what their children’s lives are going to be like. There’s no positive vision for trans people, or, I expect, for asexual people and a lot of other categories etc. I would definitely like to hear about anyone’s conversations they have about bisexuality with their parents, since I expect there are related issues like, when it comes to your parents trying to project “what my child’s life will be like,” a whole lot of parents just lapse back into assuming that you’ll have a heterosexual relationship. (This is part of why I don’t talk much about bisexuality with my parents…)

    Presumed heterosexuality has definitely affected a lot of trans people I know too, for reasons that I think are woven into this. Heteronormativity offers a certain kind of scenario that families and other people in one’s community can latch onto: oh, now that you are a woman, you can find a nice man, then you’ll be ALMOST like a regular couple, how great, and we can fit you into some sort of framework. Of course kids are still presumed to be out of the picture, which again renders invisible all sorts of ways that queer & trans folks manage to have families despite the lack of expectations, or existence of counter-expectations, around queerness + family structures.

  9. Oh, and in case it isn’t clear from that quote up there… A few years ago I took my then-girlfriend home to visit my parents, and my dad literally started crying with relief and joy when he realized that we actually had a good, loving relationship. My dad is a pretty good guy, I feel a little bad about using him as a case study, but he really had not been able to envision — for much broader cultural reasons — me in a happy, healthy relationship.

  10. I get the whole “you’re so brave” thing quite a bit. And I try to take it for what it is: someone who doesn’t and can’t understand trying to be empathetic. But a lot of people confuse empathy with understanding. But it’s better than hostility, which fortunately I don’t face very often.

    After I came out to my family, their expectations of me became… well, they expected me to stay the hell away from them. Except my dad, but he died shortly after. But my sister-in-law called me last night, which was great. It was the first contact I had with my family in nearly two years. I have two nephews that I would love to meet someday, and it’s a step in the right direction.

    Anyway, one last thing… If anyone is interested, my former roommate is running for a city council seat in Aurora Colorado. She’s TS and she just told me last night that she’s meeting Keith Olbermann for an interview today, but she doesn’t know when it will air. I figured it would be quite the big deal locally, but it’s turning out to be a big deal nationally.

    And I just want to say I’m so glad that Piny is here. It’s nice to get a trans-feminist perspective.

  11. I get you, I think. Although it has nothing to do with queerness, my related story is that my aunt and uncle had kids pretty much specifically b/c they were jealous of my family (my brother and I). Needless to say, their kids turned out nothing like either of us and child-rearing has proved to be a very difficult enterprise for them. I feel greatly for my cousins, b/c their parents’ disappointment is projected all over them and imagining their future therapy bills makes my eyeballs spin like dollar signs in a slot machine.

    I imagine it might be a little like that, except that, at least in your case, your family knows that hey! you can do more than just scrape by. I don’t think my cousins are expected to even do that, and I’m certain they know it.

    So…yeah.

  12. my mother made two statements to me, after i came out to her as trans, which will forever been burned into my memory.

    “why couldn’t you have just been gay?”

    “what kind of a man do you think you’ll be able to attract?”

    putting them together like that, i just now realized that she thought i’d be able to attract a “better” type of man as a gay man, than as a trans woman. not to mention, the assumption that somehow being trans is some type of linear extreme of being gay, something i’ve also encountered in the gay community. and further, the assumption that as a trans woman, i’d be looking for a man, as opposed to a woman – another perspective that’s rampant, though in this case, correct.

    in the mean time, she never remarried (and rarely dated) since her divorce from my dad 25 years ago, and i’m remarried to a wonderful man, and enjoyed quite an active social and intimate life from the start of my transition.

  13. nexyjo:

    Are transwomen assumed by gay men to be an extreme of male gayness? From what I’ve experienced, they just think along the lines of your mother’s reasoning, or dish out arguments like ‘well ok we support your decision, but why change your body? have you thought about it?”. Generally cisgender gay men want nothing to do with transwomen OR transmen of any sexual orientation. Cisgender lesbian women are maybe a tad more accepting of transwomen who are lesbians, but let’s not stretch reality too much.

  14. The number of stories I’ve heard from trans people whose parents have said something to them like “who will want you like that?” makes me want to retch. Even when you’re coming out as queer, people generally assume you’ll find someone — maybe someone they would consider unacceptable or horrible or ugly, but someone.

  15. Generally cisgender gay men want nothing to do with transwomen OR transmen of any sexual orientation.

    as a gay transsexual man (and hence i can only speak to one half of this statement), this has not been my experience. while i do believe that there are some specific issues around embodiment and attraction, i have had many more positive experiences with other gay men than negative. while i admit that some of this might be self-selection on my part (i am generally not attracted to men who have their heads up their asses), such a sweeping generalization to me sounds very similar to the decreased expectations that the original post describes.

  16. such a sweeping generalization to me sounds very similar to the decreased expectations that the original post describes.

    Thanks –d, and you’re probably right. I apologise. Indeed I do seem to have overgeneralised, but only based on the exhaustingly discussed experiences of my two close gay transmen friends. Perhaps it’s just Greece then, where transmen are so invisible that cis- gay men go into transpanic so often? Or where things like ‘a real man is someone with testicles and hairs all over’ are uttered without any trepidation? (Cool, I must be a real man then! All the other lesbians will be sooo jealous! What do you mean lesbians don’t secretly want to be men? *pouts*)

    My own experience with cis-lesbian women here is that I’m generally *accepted* (though as a curiosity), being an m2f lesbian myself, which I’d have considered awesome and openminded a few years ago. But a few years ago I’d also have missed that there’s so much gender-policing based on appearance (a lesbian transwoman was violently -in my absence- told to go away by our group of lesbian women, ‘because she looks like a man’)

    I would also have missed that it’s not ok when these my fellow lesbians spread rumours about my trans status around, as if I’m someone who should be avoided, or approached at one’s own risk. I’d have missed that the attitude; ‘if you apologise for being trans, and make it known, then it’s ok. Otherwise when we find out, we’ll go into transpanic’ also isn’t ok. And naturally, there’s the older feminists who haven’t yet grasped ‘biology isn’t destiny’ and are still asking me how I can be a woman if I don’t menstruate.

    On the other hand some other transwomen I know claim everyone to be sympathetic, and no transphobia or sexism to have occured to them. I guess it’s also also a matter of how much you want to see into it? Or they’re just lucky so far. And self-selection. Self-selection is good!

  17. I’ll be back, as I’m swamped per usual, but:

    Damn, do I sympathize with this. It’s like everyone has just decided my only remaining life goal is transition. I’m twenty-four, you know? I have a number of decades left in which to actually aspire to something other than bare survival. It’s just turned into “Jim’s going to grad school, Laney’s got her career in music, Beth really wants kids, and Little Light’s gonna be a woman, and hopefully not horribly murdered.” This from folks who used to tell me I was going to change the whole world.

    As to parents: my dad is continually surprised to find me happy-and-well-adjusted, and is on the verge of your dad’s tears-of-relief thing a lot of days, Holly. My mother, unfortunately, is the one working her way back up from the “Nobody will ever understand you enough to love you / This absolutely precludes having children, because they shouldn’t be exposed to that / There goes your career / You’re just doing this for attention, and to hurt your family” she busted out when I came out. Hopefully she’ll get to the “I just want you to be happy and healthy” soon.

  18. Are transwomen assumed by gay men to be an extreme of male gayness?

    it’s difficult to make generalizations. many seem to, though many others see trans women as totally different than themselves. i’ve encountered gay men who really seem to “get it”, and others have told me that they’d date me if i’d just “get rid of the clothes” (when i was pre-op).

    Generally cisgender gay men want nothing to do with transwomen OR transmen of any sexual orientation.

    i don’t know that i’ve encountered enough gay men to agree or disagree with this. most of my exposure to gay men has been in trans-accepting gay bars. and most of the men i’ve encountered there were looking for transwomen, who i’d guess are either bi or het identified.

    i would say that generally speaking, most *people* want nothing to do with “transwomen OR transmen of any sexual orientation”. fortunately, there’s a lot of people in the world, so there’s enough left that don’t care if someone is trans, with whom i can interact socially.

  19. “Jim’s going to grad school, Laney’s got her career in music, Beth really wants kids, and Little Light’s gonna be a woman, and hopefully not horribly murdered.” This from folks who used to tell me I was going to change the whole world.

    this has been close to my experience, at least from my mom. i suppose that’s just her way of “helping”, and providing “guidance”. she’s become more knowledgeable with time.

    and i have to say, i laughed out loud when i read that 🙂

  20. I am the parent of a transgendered teen. I do worry, I admit, about her being in danger, about her being happy, about her taking shit from people. But I didn’t cry or tell her to be brave, I just told her there were a lot of jerks in the world. And I bought her a vest to flatten her chest, and a nice pinstriped suit for a school dance.

    Her dad (we are divorced) had the response a lot of you note: “Gay I can handle, but that’s just crazy!” They don’t talk much, obviously.

    My current spouse is just relieved that we don’t have to deal with teenage boys.

    I don’t know if I’m doing it “right”–I’m not sure there is a “right.” I’m feeling my way as I go. But then, I’ve never thought it was really my job to tell my kids who they are–just to help them be the person they want to be.

    Thanks for this thread–it’s something I don’t see a lot of.

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