CONTENTS

Female Like Me - Abigail Grace
Female Like Me - Counterpoint - Diane
GG Night at AO - Jean
A Volunteer Opportunity - Ginger

(Just click on the title above to go directly to an article.)

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Female Like Me: The "F-Word and Transwomyn

By Abigail Grace

In 1961 journalist John Howard Griffin first published a book entitled Black Like Me. Griffin was a white man from Mansfield, Texas and in the book describes his six-week experience traveling by bus and hitchhiking throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia while passing as a black man.

Born in 1920, Griffin received a musical scholarship to study in Europe, where he studied French and literature at the University of Poitiers and medicine at the Ecole de Madecine. At 19, he worked as a medic in the French Resistance and helped smuggle Austrian Jews to safety. Later in the war Griffin served over three years in the United States Army Air Corps, stationed in the South Pacific. He was decorated for bravery and disabled in the fighting.

In the early 1950's he converted to Roman Catholicism. Griffin was a man of conscience and deep religious conviction, troubled by the racial situation in his native South. He described himself as “haunted” by these questions: “If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South, what adjustments would he have to make? What is it like to experience discrimination based on skin color, something over which one has no control?” [Black Like Me, 16th printing, New American Library, 1964, p. 7]. In the fall of 1959, Griffin decided to investigate the plight of African-Americans in the South first hand. He consulted a New Orleans dermatologist, who prescribed a course of drugs, sunlamp treatments, and skin creams. Griffin also shaved his head so as not to reveal his straight hair. He did not look at himself in a mirror until the process was complete. When he did, what he saw was “the face and shoulders of a stranger--a fierce, bald, very dark Negro–glared at me from the glass. He in no way resembled me.” [p. 15]. He felt terribly surprised. “The transformation was total and shocking. I had expected to see myself disguised, but this was something else. I was imprisoned in the flesh of an utter stranger, an unsympathetic one with whom I felt no kinship. . . . I looked into the mirror and saw reflected nothing of the white John Griffin's past. No, the reflections led back to Africa, back to the shanty and the ghetto, back to the fruitless struggles against the mark of blackness. . . . I had tampered with the mystery of existence and I had lost the sense of my own being. This is what devastated me. The Griffin that was had become invisible.” [pp. 15-16].

From November 7, 1959 to December 14, 1959, Griffin journeyed through the Deep South from New Orleans to Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Though he was never a victim of the violence which many Southern blacks often experienced in those days, he had several close calls, and when he reached Hattiesburg, a Mississippi town where racial tensions were especially high, he felt that he was “in hell,” a place that “could be no more lonely or hopeless, no more agonizingly estranged from the world of order and harmony.” [p. 67]. He did endure typical indignities such as not being allowed to leave the bus to use a segregated washroom at a declared “rest stop.” [pp. 61-62]. Hitchhiking to Mobile, Griffin got rides mostly with whites who were friendly, but almost all “showed morbid curiosity about the sexual life of the Negro, and all had, at base, the same stereotyped
image of the Negro as an inexhaustible sex-machine with oversized genitals and a vast store of experiences, immensely varied.” [p. 88]. They assumed ‘that marital fidelity and sex as love's goal of union with the beloved object were exclusively the white man's property.” One burly white man asked him if his wife “ever had it from a white man,” and said: “We figure we're doing you people a favor to get some white blood in your kids.” This“grotesque hypocrisy slapped me as it does all Negroes.” [pp. 83-94].

Sepia, a prominent black magazine, in March, 1960, published a series of articles by Griffin about his experiences which were expanded into the book released in 1961. As his story became public, he was hanged in effigy in the Texas town where he lived with his wife and four children. They moved to Mexico for a while for their own safety, then to Fort Worth. In 1964, Griffin became one of the first recipients of the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award, a Catholic award given in recognition of advocacy for peace and justice.

Interesting story. What does it have to do with people like us? I think it should have a lot to do with us. My heart says that the experiences of transpeople, particularly transwomyn like me, should make feminists of us all. Whoa! What are you saying, Ms Abigail?

First, allow me to define some terms. As I have written here before, words are terribly important to me. When I say “transpeople” I include the whole diverse gender galaxy of crossdressers along with intersexuals, transsexuals, drag queens, drag kings, androgynes, transgenderists and gender queer non-conforming folk, that is, anyone who feels “otherwise” from society’s gender assumptions whether or not they would define or describe themselves as such. And friends, allies, spouses and lovers find themselves included in that galaxy as well. (Remember the old derogatory terms for white people who allied with black people?)

“Feminism” is as complicated and difficult a word to define as is “transgender.” There is no one definition to which activists, sociologists, historians, lawyers, educators and many others would all agree. Perhaps the best known shorthand definition is that of the scholar and activist Dr Cheris Kramarae, author of Amazons, Bluestockings and Crones: A Feminist Dictionary among many other books and articles. She remarked that “feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” Well, that seems obvious. Or is it? I’ll return to this further on.

Although the word “feminism” is found in usage in the mid-1800's as a synonym for “femininity,” it first appeared in the early 1890's to describe a political movement when a British newspaper warned of “feminists” reaching power in the French legislature. After the First International Women's Conference in Paris (1892), the term began to seen in English usage as expressing a belief in and advocacy of equal rights for women, based on the dangerous idea of the equality of the sexes.

Yet from the beginning, the term has had multiple uses and contested meanings. Some writers use the term to refer to historically specific political movements in Europe and the Americas. Other writers use it to refer to beliefs about injustices against women, though no consensus exists about an exact list of these injustices. Many contemporary scholars find it is useful to distinguish feminist ideas or beliefs from feminist political movements, for even in periods where there has been no significant political activism around women's subordination, individuals have been concerned with and theorized about justice for women. See, for example, Plato’s Republic (380BCC); Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women ( 1792); John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869); Margaret Fuller, “The Great Lawsuit, Man Versus Men, Woman Versus Women” in The Dial (July, 1843). So we find a word that can provoke heated argument, a word with diverse meanings and applications, a word that excites and challenges.

Dr Naomi Rockler-Gladen, a free lance writer and former professor of communications, wrote “Some people assume that feminism is doctrine with a set of rules that all feminists must follow, lest they be thrown out of the club. In reality, there are many different types of feminism and feminists, and people who call themselves feminists disagree with each other on key issues. For most feminists, these simple ‘rules’ are their common ground--and after that, many different views prevail.” She identifies these common ground rules as 1) Women and men ought to be equal before the law and equally valued by society. 2) There are needed changes in the law and in society to ensure a better life for women. 3) Violence and repression against women worldwide needs to end. 4) Women need to support each other’s decisions and cultural differences and stand together in a sisterly manner.

For the sake of what I have to say here, I’ll use Dr Kramarae’s definition that “feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” Just as it seemed obvious to John Howard Griffin, a white male with all the privileges of whiteness and maleness, that African Americans are human beings and citizens, if one looks at Dr Kramarae’s definition from the privilege of being male, it too seems obvious.

However, let me remind us all of some history. Under English Common Law, which developed from the 12th century onward, all property which a wife held at the time of a marriage became possessions of her husband. Coverture as this legal doctrine was called meant that upon marriage, a woman's legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband. Husband and
wife were one person as far as the law was concerned, and that person was the husband. A married woman could not own property, sign legal documents or enter into a contract, obtain an education against her husband's wishes, or keep a salary for herself. If a wife was permitted to work, under the laws of coverture she was required to relinquish her wages to her husband. In law and in fact, a woman was property–first of her father, later of her husband. She might escape by entering the convent but then, in many instances, she was property of the church.

French married women suffered from restrictions on their legal capacity which were removed only in 1965. Until the mid-19th century, most writers assumed that a patriarchal order was the natural order that had always existed. Jesuit missionaries who found matrilineal societies among some native North American peoples declared this was proof of the barbarity and heathen faith of these groups.

Among upper and middle class women in Great Britain and the United States during the nineteenth century, women were supposed to embody the ideals of “the cult of domesticity,” being calm and nurturing mothers, loving and faithful wives, passive and delicate beings, pious and religious, teaching those around them by their Christian faith, and providers of unfailing inspiration and support for their husbands. Men expected women to practice four cardinal virtues: 1) piety, because they were more religious and spiritual than men; 2) “purity of heart, mind, and body;” 3) submission to their men who dictated all actions and decisions; and 4) domesticity, the division between work and home, encouraged by the Industrial Revolution-- men went out in the world to earn a living while the home became the woman's domain where a wife created a “haven in a heartless world” for her husband and children. See Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” 18 American Quarterly (Summer 1966), pp. 151-174.

But surely, women and men have made enough advances in the last sixty years that such problems and attitudes lack currency today, correct? Not necessarily.

Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008 and law professor at New York Law School, said in a 1997 speech that “During Women's History Month, I think it is especially important to have this dual perspective: both looking backward, to see how far we have come; and looking forward, to see how far we still have to go. The backward perspective, thus, is not at all so that we can rest on our laurels, proud of our achievements to date. Rather, it is for the opposite purpose. By showing us how much progress it is possible to make through organizing and advocacy, this backward glance will encourage us to carry on those efforts energetically and optimistically.” She went on to say there are still those who “seek to relegate women to traditional roles, subordinate to men not only at work and in the political sphere, but also at home.”

According to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 2008, worldwide, about 1 in 4 women can expect to be raped during their lifetime. Internationally, twice as many women as men are illiterate. Only in 1998 did an international court declare that rape is a form of torture in prison, and a war crime when conducted systematically by the military. In the United States, gender-based persecution is usually not recognized as grounds for asylum, which means that women who are likely to be killed by their fathers, brothers or husbands or sure to be genitally mutilated if they return to their own countries are usually deported nonetheless, regardless of the potential danger.

An article in Forbes, February 28, 2011, found that based upon an extensive and detailed database of 250 temporary employees who, over a period of several years, jointly were involved in 1462 projects across 462 different companies, “even in temporary jobs, women get paid substantially less than men, for the same type of work. Women earned an average of $25.08 per hour while men, for the exact same job with the same qualifications, would earn an average of $29.66. And we can’t blame that on firm specific skills.”

According to statics from the U.S. Department of Labor compiled in April, 2009, in “non-traditional occupations” women continue to be a minority. Computer programmers, only 22.4% women; computer software engineers-20.9% are women; computer hardware engineers-19.4% are women; detectives and criminal investigators-19.2% are women [television shows not withstanding]; chefs and head cooks–17.0%; industrial engineers–14.9%; ordained clergy–14.8%; police officers–14.7%; chemical engineers–13.1%; computer repairers–10.5%; building inspectors–9.5%; industrial truck and tractor operators–8.9%; electrical engineers–7.7%; mechanical engineers–6.7%; fire fighters–4.8%; aircraft pilots–2.6%; automotive technicians and mechanics–1.6%; electricians–1.0%.

Recent data released by the Department of Labor reports that in 2009, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings that were about 80% of the earnings of their male counterparts. In 1979, the first year for which comparable earnings data are available, women earned approximately 62% as much as men. After a gradual rise in the 1980s and 1990s, the women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio peaked at 81% in 2005 and 2006. Among younger workers, the earnings differences between women and men were not as great. In 2009, women earned 89% as much as men among workers 25 to 34 years old and 93% as much among 16- to 24-year-olds. In the age groupings of those 35 years and older, women had earnings roughly 75% as much as their male counterparts.

In significant ways, my experience as a woman differs from John Howard Griffin’s experience as a black man. Griffin had no African American blood in his veins. When he looked at himself in the mirror he saw nothing of himself. He wrote “I had tampered with the mystery of existence and I had lost the sense of my own being. This is what devastated me.”

When I have a dress and my makeup on, I look in the mirror and see myself. I do not see an expression of the “opposite sex” but rather an expression of myself. I identify as a“bigender” or “gender-enriched” [my phrase] person who lives with permanent gender ambiguity. I express my core gender identity running across the accepted male-female divide. My heart and mind are a rich mixture of female and male and not necessarily a 50-50 mix. When I come to a meeting, I am not disguised; rather, I am self-fulfilling and self-revealing.

As Griffin escaped the worst kinds of violence inflicted on black people, I have escaped the worst discrimination inflicted on women. Because I live my professional life in a masculine gender expression, I have not suffered the kind of economic discrimination many women suffer. I have never been pregnant nor endured monthly cycle. [When I celebrated my croning after my 60th birthday, two of my dearest friends from my church teased me, saying that they prayed that when they went through change-of-life, it would be as easy as Ms Abigail’s experience!] I received the benefits of good education. [In elementary school, all my teachers were women who gifted me with literacy.] I have not been assaulted, abused or raped.

However, I have had the merest taste, here and there, of women’s experiences. In the first year that I attended Alpha Omega meetings, on a dark winter’s night when Jean was not with me, I came out of my motel room carrying my handbag and my food for the meeting. At the far end of the row of rooms a man stood still and stared at me while I got into my car. Even as I drove away, I could see him in my rearview mirror continuing to stare. I think that in the dark and at a distance, he could not “read” me. Certainly he didn’t talk to me. What he saw was a woman alone, in high heels, with her hands full. And he stared and stared. I felt chilled and thought to myself, “So, that’s what it’s like.” I took care returning to the room that night. Moving from the car to my room, I had my set of keys spread between my fingers as a set of brass knuckles, a self-defense measure which I learned from lesbian friends.

At gatherings of LGBT Christians, I have been ignored by a table full of men engaged in intense intellectual debate as I was the only person at the table presenting as female. Likewise, in a similar situation, I have been inappropriately hugged and groped by a man. Compared to women who have endured such things for years, these were not much to bear. A bit like Griffin’s several weeks enduring the indignities of being black in the Deep South in the 1950s. But enough to make me a feminist if I wasn’t one already. But I was one already.

I grew up in a single-parent home in the late 1950's and early 60's when divorced women raising children on their own were still fairly rare. My mother threw out her abusive husband and because she had been one of those women who performed a man’s job between 1942 and 1945, she had marketable skills. She could draw and read blueprints. So for decades she did a man’s job. She did it well, extremely well. Yet her bosses, knowing that she was the sole support for herself and her children, always paid her less than the men who did the same job. I didn’t hear the word “feminist” until I was in college. But I was one from age seven onward.

I firmly believe that every transwomyn–whether crossdresser, drag queen, transsexual, androgyne, transgenderist or gender queer–ought to be a feminist. We all have read or heard of the violence inflicted on transgender people. We know of the employment discrimination and other forms of harassment which some have endured. See, Rosa v. Park West Bank & Trust Co., 214 F.3d 213 (1st Cir. 2000); Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 742 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1984) ; Holloway v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 566 F.2d 659(9th Cir. 1977); Powell v. Read's, Inc., 436 F. Supp. 369(D. Md. 1977); Voyles v. Davies Med. Ctr., 403 F. Supp. 456 (N.D. Cal. 1975); Patricia A. Cain, “Stories from the Gender Garden: Transsexuals and Anti-Discrimination Law,” 75 Denver. U. L. Rev. 1321. But if it hasn’t happened to us individually need we be concerned? My unambiguous answer is yes. Why? Because in ourselves we are blessed with something rich, honorable, and beautiful which bestows upon us the richness of being at least part female. What happens to one, happens to all.

Nearing the end of the powerful film version of Grapes of Wrath, the main character, Tom Joad, portrayed by Henry Fonda, has this conversation with
his mother:

****************************

Tom: I'd like to stay, Ma. I'd like to be with ya and see your face when
Pa gets settled in some nice place. I'd sure like to see ya then. But I
won't never get that chance, I guess, now.

Ma: I would hide ya, Tommy.

Tom: I know you would, Ma, but I ain't gonna let ya. Ya hide somebody
that's killed a guy and you're in trouble too.

Ma: All right, Tommy, but what do ya figure you're gonna do?

Tom: You know what I've been thinkin' about? About Casy, about what he
said, about what he done, about how he died. I remember all of it.

Ma: He was a good man.

Tom: I've been thinkin' about us too. About our people livin' like pigs
and good rich land layin' fallow. Well, maybe one guy with a million acres
and a hundred thousand farmers starvin', and I've been wonderin' if all
our folks got together and yelled...

Ma: Oh, Tommy. They'd drag you out and cut ya down just like they done to
Casy.

Tom: They're gonna drive me anyways. Sooner or later, they'd get me for
one thing if not for another. Till then...

Ma: Tommy, you're not aimin' to kill nobody?

Tom: No, Ma, not that. It's just, well, as long as I'm an outlaw anyways,
maybe I can do somethin'. Maybe I can just find out somethin', just
scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if
ain't somethin' can be done about it. I ain't thought it all out clear in
my mind, I can't. I don't know enough.

Ma: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why, they could kill ya and I'd
never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?

Tom: Well, maybe it's like Casy says. A fella ain't got a soul of his own,
just a little piece of a big soul - the one big soul that belongs to
ever'body. Then...then, it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark.
I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so
hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a
guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - I'll
be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready.
An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the
houses they build - I'll be there, too.

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For the same idea, see the ballad “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night;” in the Christian scriptures, Matthew 25:31-40; in the Hebrew scriptures, Micah 4:1-6 and Isaiah 54: 1-10 & 56:1-7; Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, written April 16, 1963.

What happens to one, happens to all. We, like Tom Joad, need to keep learning and keep struggling, even in day-to-day things. Alpha Omega insists upon the equality of membership with the “genetic girls [gg’s]” and the “transgender girls [tg’s].” We transwomyn need not fear but ought to be willing and eager to don an apron and help with cooking, cleaning, vacuuming, and household chores; be willing to forgo “male privilege” which makes or infers a service role to women only; be intolerant of macho attitudes, jokes or stories which degrade women; give thanks for the gg’s who love and support us; and when necessary, be reminded of sisterhood.

After all, we transwomyn can identify with the principal character in Virginia Wolfe’s marvelous 1928 novel, Orlando. In living a life switching between gender roles, dressing as both man and woman, we can realize the magnitude of being a woman, declaring as Orlando, “Praise God I'm a woman!” And we ought to relish challenging the world around us with the radical notion that women are human beings–because that includes us.

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Female Like Me: Counterpoint

Personal Comfort, Ideology & A Sense of Fairness

By Diane

Personal comfort, ideology and a sense fairness sometimes aren’t all the same things. Abigail asked me to add something in counterpoint to her article “Female Like Me: The “F-Word” and Transwomyn”. In doing so I find that what I’m comfortable with, my ideology and my sense of fairness don’t entirely line up.

Transworld is full of bitter and enduring battles about words, definitions and the defense and justification of personal identities. One of the most recent discussions of this by Mercedes Allen can be found in this essay “The Death of the 'Transgender' Umbrella”. Without wanting to rehash all of this, suffice it to say that inclusiveness is not everyone’s cup of tea. There are women of transsexual experience that do not wish to be in any way associated with crossdressers, gender queer people, even gays or lesbians etc. Of course, there are women of transsexual experience who disagree. I simply mention this to remind everyone that “transwomyn” is a term that not everyone will accept, or allow other people to use without sometimes belligerent argument. See the comments on Mercedes’ article for more than enough examples of this.

The point of this is two-fold. For one, while I’ve shared (and more) my dear friend Abigail’s experiences of the less pleasant aspects of being seen as female (and as being seen as trans) and perhaps more, there are people out there who will deny that this has any real meaning or significance. The other is that not all people who cross dress will agree that they do so out of a sense of either identifying with or as women. Some people just want to dress up, feel pretty, have a good time or party. Some people are comfortable being seen as a “guy in a dress” and wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m personally NOT comfortable with that. I find Abigail’s language compelling for me personally, that putting on the props that make me appear female don’t disguise but rather reveal an essential truth about me. Ideologically, I’m totally a feminist…we can argue about which generation I find my sympathies lie with the most, but the basic proposition that the female of the species should have equal justice under the law, equal status in society while accepting the need to accommodate and support the burdens placed on females by the biology of reproduction are to me unquestionable.

So what does fairness have to do with it? Alpha Omega has always tried to be a big tent, and we’ve enlarged to some extent the boundaries of that tent over the years. One constant has been the equality of membership of spouses and family as people who come to AO for support and community. Another, perhaps controversial in this day and age is that we are not a transition support group. Transfamily exists for that. The needs of transition are distinct and demanding, and past experience, bitter experience in my view, has shown that working through that process using AO as a vehicle has been destructive to the group, without providing a greater good. I might rethink that point if I didn’t have such admiration for Transfamily as an organization. But Transfamily does exist and does an excellent job of supporting transition. Without casting stones though, Transfamily isn’t the most comfortable environment for someone not interested in transitioning. That’s AO’s role.
Within all this, AO needs to provide a safe, comfortable environment for all its members. This is not as easy as it sounds. Freedom of speech and expression is in part at the core of what AO is. At the same time, courtesy, respect and common consideration suggests that some directions will be less than desirable. To take an ancient example, I remember too well the early days of my membership in AO where spouses felt put upon by crossdressers complaining that “women don’t know how to be women anymore, they need to learn from us!” Of course, they pushed back at this, and overall this made for a less than comfortable environment for many people. I’ve also witnessed a lot of outright disdain for women, plain old misogyny. Whether this is internalized self-hatred for their own feminine traits, or a deeply and unconsciously rooted in a male upbringing, it exists. Whether it’s expressed as jokes or as outright insults, it doesn’t belong in AO, period. I know plenty of bars where people can go to let that stuff out, wearing a dress or not. AO works for everyone because it is a safe and comfortable environment for spouses and CDs. Anything that “others” spouses is not good for the group.

But at the end, fairness means that we must be inclusive of everyone who can treat others with respect and decorum. That means that just as spouses and partners are equal members, those of us with strong identification with or as female are no more or less than crossdressers who are just out to dress up and feel pretty once in a while in a safe environment, who are perfectly happy being a “guy in a dress”. It takes work and intent to maintain this. But finding at this point that with Glo and Kathleen’s move south that I’m the longest actively participating member of AO, I know it’s worth it.

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GG Night at AO

By Jean

At the May meeting spouses and significant others held a separate meeting for genetic girls (GG) to discuss crossdressing as it relates to their lives; that of being the wife or partner of a crossdresser. The following is a list of questions that were used to start the meeting conversation. Please watch our website for future GG only meetings and feel free to contact us at outreach@aosoc.org for questions.

Questions to consider:

What is the best part of your experience so far of your husband’s/partner’s cross-dressing?

Are there some surprise side-benefits to the cross-dressing?

Have you been able to negotiate some concessions for yourself as a sideline to the cross-dressing?

When did you learn about your husband’s/partner’s cross-dressing?

How did you find out? Did he tell you? Did you discover it accidentally? Did someone else tell you?

Do all the members of your family know? If not, why not? What do you think their response would be?

What is the most difficult aspect of the cross-dressing for you? Fear of discovery? Financial considerations? Time spent on Cross-dressing or Trans websites? Others?

Has the cross-dressing changed over time? If so, how? Has it become easier for you? harder? Why and how?

What do you wish you could say to your partner/ husband?

Does your partner/husband behave differently when the feminine persona is dominant? If so, how? Does this give you an advantage?

What is your greatest fear? Can you discuss it with your husband/partner?

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A Volunteer Opportunity:

Human Rights Campaign

DARE2CARE

Unite Against Bullying

By Ginger

I was stumbling around the internet one day and an event listed in the Gay Peoples Chronicle caught my eye. A fashion show, among other entertainment - what girl doesn’t love a fashion show? So I did the ticket investigation and found that they had run out of the $25 cheap seats (“seats” being the operative word). They still had seats at $75 and $200 per ticket (a little stiff) and those prices came with some other perks that I really wasn’t interested in; I was just looking for a seat. Investigating a little closer, I noticed that there were volunteer opportunities, so I thought I’d check it out.
I wrote and waited a full week before I received a response from the volunteer coordinator. They certainly needed help, but there was a bit of a catch - they wanted name, address, and phone number. I struggled with whether I should provide this information and finally decided to sign up my “twin brother” for a first shift position because, after all, I wanted to see the show, and I needed to allow enough time to change.

Only later did I find out what first shift was responsible for. First shift was offloading and setting up stage, sound and lighting equipment. “Expect heavy lifting”. For a good cause I can do that and besides, they should have plenty of help.

So the big day arrived and I was at the old county courthouse before 7:00am as ordered and chatted with the guard about the beautiful 100 year old building before more people and the trucks started to arrive. Mike, the volunteer coordinator, had the list of 6 people that were supposed to show up for the morning and as it turns out only me and another fellow showed up for that early shift. That’s right…two of us did the work of six. Now there were also professionals from the vendors and everyone did pitch in but it was hard work and I was happy to help out.

There was a makeshift wooden ramp for us to use to get equipment into the building but it was on the verge of breaking. So we ended up carrying most of the items up the stairs into the building. Every piece of platform, every piece of staging carried piece by piece.

Once inside it was time to erect the stage and runway. Four of us put the entire runway together eight feet by eighty feet. Once that was done we helped the event planner carry in decorations and other artwork. We built changing rooms for the fashion models and assisted the caterer with lunch.

When noon rolled around it was time for the second shift so I had a quick lunch, then let the volunteer coordinator and the director of the show know that I’d be back, but in drag. Yes, I came out to these two folks (it was a bit liberating), and I received a hug for my hard work.

After a nap, a shower and a little makeup I returned to the court house to see the finished product.

The venue turned out looking great.

The MC of the show was a Drag Queen from NYC and there was singing, dance, poetry, comedy and fashion.

The winner of the poetry contest, who also won a $1000 scholarship, is a University of Akron freshman. Her poem moved me.

****************************

This Cinderella Shoe by Mary-Kate Krizman

Today, in our society, there is only black and white.
There is never any in-between, there's only wrong and right.
I had been raised a certain way, to uphold certain views,
These are the ideas I didn't know would divide the red, white, and blue:
That normal girls should buy makeup and always style their hair,
That suits, tuxes, ties and buzz cuts were only for the boys to wear.
Before I understood the truth, I thought only girls would play with dolls,
And that boys were the only ones interested in tossing pigskin footballs.
My favorite movies used to be the ones that preached of love,
Those fairytales said each princess was sent a prince from God above.
But what about the people for whom this story isn't true?
The women and men who don't quite fit this Cinderella shoe:
Your son or daughter, niece, or nephew, grandchild, or best friend:
The ones who pray your love for them will never ever bend.
Would you turn your back on her? Or would you turn her away?
Would you ignore the courage it took for her to tell you she was gay?
And what about him? What about the boy? Would you tell him he was sick
If the thing that made him happiest was a little rouge and some lipstick?
Who's to choose who you will meet? Or who will hold your hand?
A universal definition for love is written not on stone but in sand.
So if you love somebody who's transsexual, bisexual, or gay,
Please stop and take a moment now to say you'd have them no other way.

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The fashion show was wonderful; but with one minor disappointment. The preshow literature indicated that fashion designer, Valerie Mayen, a Clevelander, who was a participant in “Project Runway” season 8, was to be at the show; she ended up being a no-show.

Nonetheless, I had a great time.

I ran into the volunteer coordinator at the show and, of course, he did not recognize me, but when he realized who I was, he did tell me I looked “cute”.

Human Rights Campaign plans to do a similar event next year and I certainly plan to be there. Keep an eye out for opportunities as you too can help the HRC by volunteering to bring compassion and engagement to the movement for equality.

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Group Information
The Alpha Omega Society is a non-profit social support group for heterosexual crossdressers and their wives or partners. We primarily serve Cleveland and nearby Northeast Ohio communities.

Publication Information
This newsletter is copyright 2011 by The Alpha Omega Society. All rights reserved. Articles and information contained in this newsletter may be reprinted by other non-profit crossdresser organizations with advance permission of the author and provided that proper credit is given to author and source. The opinions or statements contained in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Alpha Omega.

Contributions of articles are welcomed, but may be altered in the editing process, with the author's intent retained, or may be rejected, whether solicited or not. We will exchange newsletters with any other similar group.

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