A Guest Entry on Issues of Interest

Hi there,
Okay, this is a first for my site.  A guest entry.

Sweety wrote this today, and asked if I’d like to post it on my entry, since, if you know Sweety, you know she doesn’t discuss these issues there.  I found this a wonderful essay, and am more than pleased to share it with you all.

If you want to leave comments here, I can show them to her, or if you know her, you can find your way to her diary. 

Without further ado,

Are there only these choices?

Recently, I was in conversation with someone who had some upset. We were talking about the way people tend to define us. Gay, straight, Bi, whatever. The substance of our conversation continues below, but this aside here is good background to her experience and why she was not at ease.

Her conundrum brought up an interesting thought: How could so complex a being as a human only have so many definitions (G, B, L, T or straight)?

First, the idea of social constructs comes to mind. Social constructs are how we observe and define our world without going crazy with re-discovery every time we revisit a similar situation. For instance, when one says they have a husband at home, the social construct of a couple with the one as husband being male, most likely hetero, with perhaps children or the intent of children is conjured up. Rather than having to parcel out whether the person on the other side of that relationship is male, our learned social construct of marriage and husbands keeps those questions at bay, since they are tacitly answered already.

However, that is not always the case. Social constructs can also become the basis for prejudging and shortcutting the necessary discovery in a given situation.

In a world where we have formed ideas in childhood that are then challenged as we get to know people, it is easy to see how people can make assumptions that wind up embarrassing them or worse.

How does the significant other of a transgender person describe her partner? Husband? Well, that implies male – and typically the breadwinner. However, that is not always the case. Also, what does that say about the wife? Is she a heterosexual if she stays with her husband as he becomes a she? Is she now a lesbian?

Think of what your personal social construct is with respect to the word lesbian. Do you think of a female truck driver? Someone who is ridiculously athletic or butch? If you met someone who did not meet those expectations, but then started talking about their partner versus their husband, what world would you create for them in your mind – what would story would you make up?

I met a person last night at a support group meeting who mentioned her fiancee several times. She was young, liked to be the center of attention, telling stories that were more geared to oneupsmanship than substantive conversation. It was okay, I remember my walk through that experience. It was easy for me to make up a story about her fiancee, a young fellow, kind of cute since she was kind of cute, inexperienced and equally too young to be embarking on something as serious as marriage.

Then she introduced her fiancee. A tall woman who was easily twenty years her senior, who had started life as a biological male and completed transition to female. Interesting, I thought. I still did not see a lot of hope of success in the marriage due to the young lady’s age (and lack of maturity), although it was probably going to much more of an interesting journey than the one I made up. Reality outpaced my story! How often does that happen?

My upset friend in conversation shared with me how odd it is to straddle the world of those who know about her husband, and those who don’t. There are several friends who do not know and who are at times in mixed company with those who do. So, there are times when my friend must decide how to address her husband, and must deal with her own dissonance of wanting to support her husband’s transition and so is reluctant to use the ‘other’ pronoun (him, he) when the situation demands it. There is always that moment of stop, think before continuing on when a pronoun comes up.

She then also has to deal with the arising awareness of how her husband’s transition is really her transition as well. She will go from the heuristically known category of wife of a professional to the partner of a guy in a dress who is likely unemployed. If she chooses to stay with him, she also becomes subject to questions regarding her own mental soundness. Her willingness to fulfill the marriage vows goes from being honorable to being an albatross.

Further, her recognition of self becomes something that changes. We have all had to cope with the realization that we are not as young as we used to be, usually when we try some physical activity that causes incredible soreness in muscles we did not know we owned. Her situation is going to last more than the few days it takes to get over sore muscles. Hers is forever. Unless she leaves the situation or accepts her new role. What is she? Loyal spouse? Sure, and that is honorable. But what about the label she has for her orientation? Is she a heterosexual in what would be viewed as a lesbian relationship? That then brings up her view of her husband. Is she betraying her husband when she thinks of her partner as a ‘him’ in order to make sense in her own mind about her relationship and herself?

There was a time in this country when a young person might come out as gay and be hospitalized, given shock treatment and confined. If he or she did not become ‘cured’ then the only face-saving reaction of the family was to disown them. Sometimes today, a family will still disown their gay offspring, though thankfully the medical interventions are not so widespread. Those interventions do still exist for those who choose to try to ‘make themselves right.’ There are many organizations eager to subject such people to dehumanizing treatment in the name of religion. Short of knowing why these people are the way they are, these organizations know that God can’t love them that way, so no matter what it takes, good god-fearing folks will straighten them out. I guess it is good that someone knows what God wants, if not why he/she set things out the way they are.

In the Transgendered community, many of the individuals who experience being transgendered want to know why this happened to them. What caused them to find their biological body to be in painful disagreement with their mental gender construct or gender identity. Many of them recall from childhood feeling like they were not the gender that their physical body manifested. From an innocent age, before the development of sexual drives which delineate sexual attraction, these kids felt the pull to the other gender’s roles and appearance. So the idea that these folks are seeking to dress and act as the other gender for purposes of sexual gratification does not hold water. Yet, so many of them are steeped in shame so paralyzing that they fail at relationships, abandon their nuclear families (or are cast out) and some even take their own lives. No wonder t

hey want to know why.

The worst part? Knowing why will not solve the problem. Just because I know why I have the physical characteristics I do will not make me any happier with them. For such questioning persons who are transgender, some go through all of that anguish and effort of research for nothing. Maybe they get the opportunity to blame pollution, or DES, or their mother. But in the end, they still have to live the situation and do the best with it that they can. And society in general still cannot stop staring in fascination, pointing or making fun.

Last night at the support group, I was talking with some of the folks when some teenagers started looking in the glass of the door. It was a door to an internal hallway, and our meeting was clearly closed-door. The kids were openly staring. Here we were, in what was supposed to be a safe haven, and these kids were gawking in full view of the meeting participants. I watched them, and when the gaze swept my way I faced them directly and stared back. They went away. The feeling of being treated like specimen on display lingered. The folks at the meeting talked about it for a while. That experience snuck in and stayed even though the kids had gone. Once again, shame has a presence even in a place of support.

I have, on two other occasions, been the bouncer for ridding my good friends of tourists (our name for those who stare at the transgendered and cross dressed). Both times I have asked if they would like to ask some of the folks some questions. Both times I have been met with a dumb stare as the person tried to see what box I fit in. I don’t look transgendered, dressed in my gender compliant clothes, but I am hanging out with them. What does that make me? There is no social construct for that. Why would I hang out with freaks? What could be wrong with me? Both times I have made the point that my friends are people, and just like anyone else they are looking to have a pleasant time with their friends. They want to dress up, go out, have a drink, conversation and to go home in peace. Odd, isn’t it? I bet that in the morning they even eat Cheerios, some of them.

The issues faced by the transgender population and their significant others, their families and close friends, are often caused by the intolerance of people who have never been in the ranks of those who don’t conform. They are the same people who would block automatic care for the ill because they have never had to choose between healthcare or heat. I find this a clear indication that these folks might know how to form the words compassion or sympathy with their mouths, but have no real concept of the meaning of those words in their minds.

It is hard to define the situation clearly unless you have lived it. Perhaps, it is better in some cases to allow the definition to become clear over time while simply trusting in the basic goodness of that which we do not fully understand.

Posted by The Needler