Bits & Pieces - Diane Frank

Sacred Words

One of the discussion lists that I participate in just blew up, with a large fraction of the active contributors de-listed or boycotting. A lot of the discussion was about the meaning of words, and in particular the meaning of the term transgendered. It’s a term we use frequently, and the generally accepted meaning is an umbrella term for a wide range of behaviors and identities. But there are people who object to being labeled this way, and I think their reservations merit awareness and considerate treatment.

Some people who don’t like being called transgendered are those born with ambiguous genitalia and/or metabolic variations that affect the generation or utilization of sex hormones. Many of these people have been treated in US by genital surgery at an early age, in order, it is claimed to give them a normal life. There is a growing movement to end this practice and let people chose to reshape ambiguous genitals as they find their own way in life. Surgery on infants is likened to the genital mutilation practiced on girls in some tribes in Africa. Studies seem to show that in Western countries, the success rates of the surgical assignments isn’t great, less than 80% in the best cases, and total failures in others. In contrast I heard of studies in 3rd world countries where people wished they had been treated as infants. Regardless of this, people with ambiguous genitalia who figure out who they are and what they want to present themselves as to society at large, regardless of their surgical status often resent being called transgendered. They had a birth defect, but that in no way should allow someone to indicate that there is somehow something abnormal or unusual about the choices they make with their lives. They feel that being called transgendered does that. This occurs mostly when someone determines that the sex they were assigned to at birth isn’t what they are, and they need to do something about it. Being called transgendered when they do this seems to validate societies right to impose an incorrect gender assignment on them, and they don’t like it.

Another group of people who resent the transgendered umbrella are a group of people with transsexual history, in particular a group calling itself "women born trans." The argument here is similar to that raised by people born with ambiguous genitalia. "Our birth defect," so the argument goes, "was in our brains, and it was cured by aligning our bodies to our brains. Now that we’ve accomplished that necessary change, we do not transgress any gender boundaries. We are women, pure and simple. Calling us transgendered denies us our lives and assigns us to a ghetto, whereas we just want to assimilate into the world around us". Not every MtF transsexual agrees with this, and many use the term transgendered to describe themselves.

The controversy that heatedly swirled around these issues is, in once sense a tempest in a teapot. Leslie Feinberg has correctly noted that the LGBT alphabet soup of people and identities have nothing with each other except their persecution by mainstream society. Whether women-born-trans or with ambiguous genitalia wish it, society will treat them as part of the stew. But they can complain that being lumped into the mixture in fact harms them in a unique way. I’ve mulled this over, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like the noun transgendered for much of anything.

Actually I don’t like labels in this arena at all. What you think a label means and what someone else thinks it means can be two very different things. For example despite all intentions, many people think that the term crossdresser automatically implies things about someone’s sexuality. There’s also the problem of looking for prophetic knowledge. Right now if you go shopping on Amazon.com they’ll keep track of your shopping preferences and the next time you log in, present you with a list of potential purchases based your past ones. They think these new offers apply to you. Adopting a label can work a bit like that. If I am A, and according to the conventional wisdom it is prophesized that B, C and D go along with A, then maybe I’d better look into B, C and D. Not, I think a good thing overall.

So instead of using labels, I’d prefer to take more space and be descriptive. Instead of assuming an umbrella of transgendered people, I rather say the following: There are some people who behave in ways that are socially assigned to the opposite sex. I can call this transgendered behavior. There are some people who identify at least partially as the opposite sex to how they would be expected to identify. I can call this transgendered identification. Using transgendered as a precise, specific and limited adjective rather than a noun is I think a better thing to do than imply relationships between people that are resented and may not exist.

No Escape.



We took a weeklong trip to Northern California a couple of weeks ago. A combination of business and family matters and bit of vacation. A company I was visiting put us up at the San Mateo Marriott. This we thought would be a perfectly ordinary weeklong escape from the snow. No makeup, no jewelry, just us. But fate has a way of messing with your expectations at times. That very weekend, a number of transgendered (oops, there’s that word again) organizations in the Bay area were having their annual Cotillion. My friend Denea Doyle, the presentation coach was helping some of her students prepare for it. And where did this little festival of femininity take place, you may ask? You guessed it, the San Matteo Marriot. As Friday rolled along you could see the carts rolling in stuffed to the gills with dresses, wig boxes and enough glitter and sequins to blind a regiment. I asked some of the girls at breakfast how many attended and I was told on the order of 200. I did have a chance to chat with Denae at the fringes of things to clear up a confusion about getting a copy of her new instructional DVD for our library. Which reminds me, I still need to place that order.



We had dinner on Saturday with relatives staying elsewhere in the city, and one blurted out that she’d seen 4 transvestites already during the few days, and reminisced about being complemented on an outfit she wore to San Francisco 40 years ago by some drag queen.



Then we went and visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Who should they be having a retrospective of, but Diane Arbus, noted for her photographs of the New York Demimonde in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. Some of her less provocative pictures of crossdressers were among the photos.



And in the midst of everything else going on, we did stop by Nordstrom Rack. I found a lovely royal purple velvet jumper at a deep discount. There’s also a discount chain in Northern California, Mervyn’s, where I found a beige velvet blouse from Harve Bernard for a song.



Diane