FROM THE DIARY
By Diane Frank
Holidays
I hope everyone had happy holidays and is looking forward to a healthy, happy
and prosperous New Year. The holiday season can be one of great stress as family
activities remind us of the constraints that bound our lives. One thread on a
forum was about what clothes people might wear on Christmas Day, and the pain of
not-wearing the clothing of their choice in order to accommodate the comfort of
others, or contrarily the annoyance at an obsession that couldn’t be put aside
for just one day.
But other people can have it worse and they find themselves celebrating with
families of choice, or no families at all. We did two of the three, with
returning children and Chanukah parties at temple and in our home. A
sister-in-law sent me a book of rounds, with some pages marked for me, “Our
Sister Gail, Used to be a Male” among them. We managed a collective family
feast on the 25th, instead of the other tradition of Chinese and a Movie. We did
the Chinese the night before.
On New Year’s Day, my beloved spouse reminded me that I’d had the thought of
taking my friend E from my book circle to see a matinee of “Little Miss
Sunshine.” So we did and had an unplanned dinner stop at a favorite Japanese
Restaurant. Little Miss Sunshine made some predictable points about the
sexuality that lies not so buried in the little girl beauty pageants, but after
JonBenét Ramsey, this is scarcely ground breaking.
I’ve been helping E with her invitations for a birthday party coming up to
celebrate her 85th year. It will be a high tea and everyone will be expected to
wear hats. And that brought up the topic of the Red Hat Society. There is a
poem, much celebrated by women of a certain age that starts out:
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens.
Demagogue: “We are all individuals”
Crowd: “We are all individuals”
Lone Person: “I’m not”
To me it’s part of the same phenomena of limited expectations. I wonder when someone will go to a red hat club meeting wearing clam diggers and tank top, say at an outing to the opera.
Polls
In the past weeks I’ve had the displeasure of reading two separate polls about crossdressing, neither of which seems to be able to imagine much beyond actually putting on a dress, going to a support group or a bar and counting the number of pairs of panties in the lingerie drawer. The most ambitious question on one poll was, “Have you ever talked to a straight person while dressed?” It’s not just that this sort of question makes me personally invisible, as I have ample enough reasons to tear up my membership card in whatever club it is that we supposedly are both members of. It’s that the idea of there being something else doesn’t seem to exist. One is either a transsexual, living a full-time life as a woman, or one is engaged in counting the number of garments in the underwear drawer. Propagating this sort of thing is a bad idea, as people will come to expect that’s all that they can do with this part of their life, just as the tacky overpriced clothing from CD specializing boutiques sets the limits on what some people will ever wear. Red Hats and Purple Dresses everyone?
A recent post on another forum also got me thinking a bit about differences of experience. The letter noted that people had congregated at a bar, socialized with each other, danced and had a good time. The same as last week and the same as next week. And in a few weeks they’ll have an outing. What if anything is different between that and my life? After all, don’t I go to temple regularly, and book circle? And have periodic outings? I’m not sure that the people who wrote those polls would see any difference. What I see is that when people put on a dress to go to a bar, to meet with other people who put on dresses to go to a bar, the whole business is about having a chance to wear a dress and a community formed around the chance to wear a dress. When I go to temple it’s about the service that night and the community formed around the Torah. When I go to book circle it’s about the book and other women’s opinions about that book and the community formed around a shared love of literature. The nature of the group changes the dynamic. An Alpha Omega meeting will forever and always be about the clothing. It has its place and it doesn’t claim to be anything more. But often these days, those groups at bars are claiming to be something more…what they claim varies with the group and the personalities. But I guess I just don’t see how that claim can be substantiated.
One of the poll writers came up with a definition of a t-girl (or tgirl depending on your preferred spelling). One graduates from being a transvestite or crossdresser when one puts on a bra and makeup in addition to other clothing. I think the intent here is that in this person’s perspective those things are signs of gender dysphoria, that crossdressing is about more than the texture of the clothing and/or sexual arousal. Given the number of women who have burned their bras and eschew makeup, it’s a funny distinction to make.
I don’t think gender is something you do by yourself. I’ve come to the opinion that gender is a conversation, a negotiation between you and the rest of the world. Putting on a bra and makeup isn’t by itself part of such a conversation. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to here it does it make a sound? If a person dresses up with only themselves as the audience does that make a sound? I think that a person may or may not have gender dysphoria if they add lipstick and a bra. I don’t think it’s definitive at all. If you want to know, ask. Don’t do remote diagnosis, better still don’t diagnose at all.
On Going Out
I saw an interesting, indeed fascinating comment on the URNA profile of a local non-AO CD.
“I'm not really much into the bar scene, although
lately I have come to realize that it is the only place to meet other girls
and friends.”
My guess is that it isn’t about just meeting other CDs and making friends with people. That’s not what it’s really about, is it? It’s about meeting certain CDs and making certain kinds of friends. It’s about a shared sexuality and shared appreciation of seeing hose-covered legs in short skirts and having two of those legs being your own, and being appreciated by still others.
I suppose I’d think differently about this if I saw people writing about lives that had other dimensions. If the people who get excited about a tgirl convention in Las Vegas were also writing about having lives in a garden club, a charitable organization, a political action group, just being their queer T* selves inside a regular community, I think I’d see them in a different light. But they don’t. So I don’t.
And this is in its own way another one of those implicit limits that seem to be my theme in this article. It reflects fear and guilt and shame that we can’t be seen or make connections with anyone but people like ourselves. Or, that limit I mentioned in my last article in the context of the Diane Arbus imaginary biography. We stay with our “own kind” because we see ourselves as freaks, and thus seek similiar company.
Shopping
Despite a slow start due to a few days out of town, January is proving to be a busy month. Besides the usual goings on at temple and book circle, I’ve finally paid a call on my friend Jennifer up at Hair Solutions in Euclid. I missed my first appointment with her because I misread an 8 for a 5 (or was it the other way around?) on her address, and couldn’t find her sign. After calling her and apologizing and groveling (Yes, I can grovel), I decided to head over to Coldwater Creek because they were having a 70% off sale both in store and on the internet...and I wanted to see if I could get locally what I had my eye on on-line. (A word to the wise...watch those on-line sales, I had disappear between morning and evening). I got there and Phyllis popped over and says hi!...except I was in guy mode the last time I was there. So she's figured out that that tall woman in the fake fur coat and patchwork skirt had to be well, uh, me. So I'm using male ID and credit cards here....and then Phyllis gets a good look at me and says "weren't you in Victor/Victoria with me?" Cleveland is a big small town at this point...and this continues my record on not being able to go anywhere without bumping into someone I know. So Phyllis and her manager couldn't have been more delightful. And while I guess Phyllis hasn't really gotten to know me as anything other than Diane, she does have my name, rank and serial number. Worlds collide.
Some of this is social drill. The woman ahead of me is giving me the slightly uneasy side looks, so I ask her what she got, and complimented her on the new earrings, and then admired the earrings she had on, and her scarf...and that was that. She was smiling and chatting without being ill-at-ease. Part is the social armor. I had Phyllis as buddy. We'd been in a show together. While I was clothes shopping, I had a witness who knew me as something more than pretty clothes. And when I don't have one with me, they're still with me inside my head.
So a few days later, I finally get to Hair Options. In one of those “aha” moments I found her shop had no sign on the door or sign outside, like she used to in her old location. Why? While much of her clientele are orthodox Jewish women who are required to wear wigs/hats/snoods, she does a fair business with cancer patients. Apparently there is a great sensitivity about being seen going in and out of a wig shop. In other words, other people have closet issues.
One thing I learned about is sew-in clips. I’ve never seen them on a newly
bought wig, and I’d never had them mentioned before. They make a world of
difference. One at each temple, and one at base of the skull provides pretty
secure attachment. These are snap-clips, so you press them open, engage the comb
in your hair and snap them closed again. They hold well, and you really don’t
want to have someone pulling on your wig while they are locked in place.I had the wig cut in by our friend Cathy down at Salon 176. Of course I’m having regrets, and second thoughts, like any woman with a new hairstyle. It’s lighter than what I’ve been wearing, and I’m told that lighter is better as we age. I somehow can’t see myself as a peroxide blond. Which reminds of what a friend of mine said to another in my book circle “I’ve know you through all your hair.” It was said fondly of an old friend. That gets me thinking about the people I’ve met through AO, and their hair that I’ve known, and I find I have a remarkably bad memory for it. I remember people…not hair.
On the way back from Cathy’s I stopped at US Hair on Northfield road near Randall Park. Cathy recommended it because she knew I was looking for a hat for the tea party. The shop primarily caters to African American women, who because of their problems managing nappy hair tend to wear more wigs than other ethnic groups. The shop also has a lot of “Sunday-go-to-meeting” hats. I found one almost large enough in felt, and was able to stretch it just a bit by wetting the felt along lower inner circumference, and letting it dry on a form. The young waiting on me didn’t bat an eye. She was also drop dead tired. Or, maybe 6’2” in flats white women in jeans and long fake fur coats come into that store everyday. The store owner didn’t bat a eye either.
I spent a lot of time wondering about what to wear to the TG101 event in Kent. While the UUs are reported to have the highest per capita income of Christian denominations, they have a decidedly informal side. I didn’t want to wear pants, and thereby give too much of an impression of being TS. So while I was pondering this I happened to wander (in drab) into a fair trade shop Revive on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. I was immediately struck by some bias cut patchwork jersey skirts. The earth tones and the uneven coloring gave the skirt a look of distressed sued, while being much more comfortable and a lot cheaper. Just the thing for the Unitarians I thought, something cozy like a Sunday school teacher would wear.
The TG 101 Session run by Kat Holtz of Town Hall 2 at the UU Church in Kent had three interesting aspects to it. First, it wasn’t run by a trans-person, which raised an ‘at a distance’ perspective. Second, there were two women there who had stories tell of their encounters. One had been in an abusive relationship with someone who transitioned (apparently). The other had come back to her flat to find her boyfriend dressed to the nines. They went out and had a good time, but she found she quickly couldn’t get her head around it. I wished I’d had a chance to explore that story further.
The women at the UU generally seemed accepting of the whole broad business because of a sense of vested interest, a notion that if other people aren’t free, they can’t be either. If “we” are forced into strict gender roles, so are they. Many recalled past instances of gender repression that they’d experienced. Still, that form of “acceptance” can be like the ACLU defending Nazis’ and KKKer’s rights of free speech. I’d rather be accepted because I’m seen bringing value to the table rather than being a potential roadside grave marker on highway to totalitarian state.
I did experience a bit of an epiphany about explaining one of the more troubling aspects of people from our community being in public - the bit about sexuality. Everyone remembers Amy Bloom’s remarks (after all I won’t let people forget now, will I?), yes?
"The greatest difficulty people have with
cross-dressers, I think, is that cross-dressers wear their fetish, and the
gleam in their eyes, however muted by time or habit, the unmistakable presence
of a lust being satisfied or a desire being fulfilled in that moment, in your
presence, even by your presence, is unnerving. The combination of the
cross-dressers' own arousal and anxiety and our responsive anxiety and
discomfort is more than most of us can bear. We may not mind foot fetishists,
but we may not wish to watch them either."
A given CD may very well have CDing as part of his/her eros. But that doesn't require that all of the CDing behavior for this person is erotically based or active. We know better than to say that what a given woman does can always be properly interpreted as sexual. Sometimes a woman may want to be “hot” and most of the time “not.” This temporal distinction is one I don't see made, and it would probably help one person I know to be able to say "Yes, my CDing is part of my sexuality...but NOT RIGHT NOW. When I put on a teddy for bed THAT's when it's sexual, or when I dress to be hot at a club, then it's sexual, but not at this moment.” Now if the person is dressed in slutwear when they demure on their sexuality, or in some other ritualized clothing, even something as apparently innocuous as 1950’s housewife outfits with those wonderful full, flaring skirts and petticoats, I may not be inclined to totally take them at their word.
So that was that for outreach to the UUs, it was successful and I had a very nice Mexican dinner with my old friends from the Akron area Colleen and Sandy, as well as the presenter Kat. Less successful was my outreach effort to some of the other communities in the area, offering them a chance to speak for themselves on the panel. Only two people volunteered. As a matter of discretion I won’t go into why they didn’t work out, but I was disappointed that only two people even volunteered. It may not be possible to get the people who party to take responsibility for their own outreach…or perhaps it takes someone with more star power than I’ve got.
Birthday Party
As a last note to this long epistle, I’ve just come back from a wonderful time with my elderly friend at book circle. She celebrated her 85th birthday party with a high tea and mandatory hats. There were a huge variety of hats, and one woman who didn’t bring one borrowed one from the birthday girl that suited her perfectly. The hat was a Dior. I finally had a chance to meet many of the friends of friends. T-girls would have loved it because three women were running around snapping pictures like crazy. Strangely though, no one was hiking her skirt to display a leg, or putting a hand suggestively here or there. Just lots of hats, smiles and old friends. One doesn’t have to worry about one’s picture ending up on the internet here….however upcoming art exhibitions are another matter. One friend is seriously working on a project for exhibition involving women talking with their hands.
So we had the expected cucumber sandwiches and chocolate and tea, and then retired to the studio where we all introduced ourselves, told how we knew our hostess and read a poem. Scattered as I was, I forgot to bring a poem, but managed to talk about a shared experience that was appreciated anyhow. Afterwards some women from my friend’s play reading group read a short play about the brief life of mayflies, which given how old we all are there, had special resonance as a message to live life while we can. Carpe Diem. My beloved spouse dropped in too for a little while in an adorable little hat straight out of the 1920s that suited her well. My hat was a red fantasy that reminded me of the Sendak illustrations in “Really Rosie” that I picked up at US Hair on Northfield. Added to the patchwork tie red ensemble I picked up on sale at Coldwater Creek (remember that?) A curious note…everyone was so taken by my flamboyant hat that no one seemed to notice that my hair was a different color, cut and length. So much for the powers of observation.
Since it got late, I decided not to change clothes for the performance of Ballet Luna Negra at the Ohio Theatre. The dance was exciting but after the long day I found myself dozing towards the end. The Latino/Latina kids in front looked hard at me, and then forgot about me. A friend saw me in the lobby, scampered over, said hi, and vanished.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
I thought I was going to stop here, and this showed up in the local paper:
February 4th, 2007 - Quote:
"Kind of Trans-parent"
"A man I would call Philip, a successful
attorney, and I had just had dinner out and had returned to his home. He
excused himself, 'wanting to show me something,' only to return dressed as a
woman. A WOMAN! The full gear - wig, makeup, hose, you name it - he had it on.
And, honestly, he was the ugliest 'woman' I have ever 'dated.' I think it
would have been easier to kiss a real woman than him dressed as one."
And that was it for the day, and the week.