Whipping Girl

ways to pass time when you have pneumonia...

2012-02-16T09:34:00.000-08:00

sleep.

eat, or not eat. (mostly the latter.)

fondly reminisce about oxygen.

make up lots jokes along the lines of “Oh my god I can *not* believe that I fucking have pneumonia. how the fuck did this happen!”

stop for a minute to catch my breath.

unleash cunning trans woman sense of humor when chest-xray-technician repeatedly asks me: “so you’re absolutely sure your not pregnant, right?”

recall how, as a young child, I thought that the medical condition pneumonia and the chemical ammonia were somehow interrelated.

fondly reminisce about deep breaths.

come to appreciate the shorter, shallow breaths, because that’s all the world is offering me now.

pretend that I am exploring a new planet that is much like earth in many ways, except that it has 20% less oxygen.

get used to having all of my laughter quickly devolve into coughing.

marvel at the seemingly infinite amount of phlegm that I am capable of coughing up in the course of a day.

watch news stories about how Rick Santorum has become GOP presidential frontrunner, and realize that my shortness in breath is not due to panic attack, but to my stupid pneumonia.

make more silly jokes and bad puns about pneumonia. that which does not kill us should at least make us giggle a little bit.

did I mention stopping for a minute to catch my breath?

announcing Girl Talk 2012: a Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue

2012-01-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, so over the weekend the official Girl Talk 2012: a Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue details were announced! Here is the official Facebook invite and here is the official QCC website. All the details also appear below.

Past shows have sold out, so we encourage folks to purchase advance tickets from Brown Paper Tickets. Please save the date and/or spread the word wide and far!!! -julia

Girl Talk: A Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue

Thursday, March 29th, 2012
7:00pm - 10:00pm
San Francisco LGBT Community Center - Rainbow Room
1800 Market Street between Octavia & Laguna
Tickets: $12-$20 (no one turned away)

curated by Gina de Vries, Elena Rose and Julia Serano

cast includes: Charlie Anders, Dominika Bednarska, Gina de Vries, DavEnd, Thea Hillman, Nomy Lamm, Emily Manuel, Elena Rose (aka Little Light), Julia Serano, Jos Truitt and Pidge Vera

Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day — from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear.

Girl Talk is an annual spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

performer bios

Charlie Anders hosts and organizes the award-winning Writers With Drinks reading series in San Francisco, which was namechecked in Armistead Maupin's latest Tales of the City novel. She's had stories in Best Lesbian Erotica 2010, Sex For America: Politically Inspired Erotica, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009 and 2011, and Tor.com. She co-founded other magazine: the magazine for people who defy categories, and currently blogs at io9. She won the 2010 Emperor Norton Award for "extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason."

Dominika Bednarska is a postdoctoral fellow at U.C. Berkeley, where she completed her PhD in English and Disability Studies. Her writing has appeared in Wordgathering, The Bellevue Literary Review, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, The Culture of Efficiency: Technology in Everyday Life, What I Want From You: An Anthology of East Bay Lesbian Poets, Ghosting Atoms, and Cripping Femme. She is currently working on expanding and revising her solo show, My Body Love Story, that will be performed this spring and summer. For more information, go to dominikabednarskaspeaks.blogspot.com or become a fan on Facebook.

Gina de Vries founded and co-curates “Girl Talk” with Elena Rose and Julia Serano. She’s thrilled that the show is still going strong after 4 years. Gina has taught Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop since 2008, and you can find her work anthologized all over, from the San Francisco Bay Guardian to Coming & Crying. A graduate of Hampshire College, Gina is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing and Master’s in English at San Francisco State University. The Record, her experimental fiction novel about sex, adolescence, music, San Francisco, and growing up queer, should be hitting bookstores in 2013. Find out a whole lot more at ginadevries.com.

DavEnd is a tenderhearted, genderqueer, costume designing, accordion wielding songwriter, performing artist and designer based in San Francisco. Ms. End has released two studio albums (How To Hold Your Own Hand, Fruits Commonly Mistaken For Vegetables) and for the past 5 years, has been touring extensively in the U.S., performing at queer teen centers, festivals, colleges, theatres and backyards. DavEnd’s current project, Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!,brings together the worlds of music and radical performance art in a theatrical extravaganza, exploring the effects of heterosexism and street harassment on the development of queer identity.

Thea Hillman is a mother, writer, and performer. Her book of poetry and fiction "Depending on the Light," was published in 2001. Her Lambda award-winning memoir, "Intersex: For Lack of a Better Word" came out in 2008 and is taught at universities around the country.

Nomy Lamm is a writer, musician, performance artist and voice teacher. Her band, nomy lamm & THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, is a flexible platform for collaboration with everyone and everything, including other musicians, artists, poets, puppeteers, spectators, and the moon. She performs regularly with Sins Invalid, creating musical dreamworld performance art about disability, sexuality and social justice. She is currently working on her MFA thesis, a collection of short stories called "515 Clues," and writes an advice column for Make/Shift magazine called "Dear Nomy."

Emily Manuel is a Greek-Australian becoming-Jewish writer, blogger, editor, sometime academic, musician, partner, mother to four cats, and beekeeper. She found a bee and she kept it - that's the first rule of beekeeping. She is editor-in-chief at Global Comment magazine, and her work has also appeared at Questioning Transphobia, Tiger Beatdown, Billboard magazine, Bitch magazine, and many others. She has a PhD in English from Murdoch University in Australia gathering dust in the corner.

Elena Rose, a Filipina-Ashkenazic mixed-class trans dyke mestiza, rode stories out of rural Oregon and hasn’t stopped making words since. In her second year co-curating "Girl Talk" and fourth as a performer, she writes online as “Little Light,” travels the country as a preacher and poet, and has dedicated herself to the work of radical love, queer theology, and justice for those who live at the edges. Her work has turned up everywhere from college classrooms to bathroom mirrors to protest marches, in magazines including Aorta and Make/Shift, and on the acclaimed spoken-word album It Is Better to Speak! Rose is currently finishing her first book, Mountain of Myrrh, forthcoming from Dinah Press, and attends seminary in Northern California, where she resides with her wife and a small but well-loved pomegranate tree.

Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, performer and activist. She is the author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, a collection of personal essays that reveal how misogyny frames popular assumptions about femininity and shapes many of the myths and misconceptions people have about transsexual women. Julia’s other writings have appeared in anthologies (including Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Word Warriors: 30 Leaders in the Women's Spoken Word Movement and Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape), in feminist, queer, pop culture and literary magazines and websites (such as Bitch, AlterNet.org, Out, Feministing.com, and make/shift), and have been used as teaching materials in gender studies, queer studies, psychology and human sexuality courses in colleges across North America. juliaserano.com.

Jos Truitt is a Boston native and recent transplant to San Francisco. She joined the team at Feministing.com in July 2009 and became an Editor in August 2011. Jos attended Hampshire College where she coordinated the school's annual national reproductive justice conference. After college she worked in the reproductive health, rights and justice movements in Washington, DC. Jos has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos is currently pursuing an MFA in Printmaking at San Francisco Art Institute.

Pidge Vera is a mixed-race queer femme writer, performer and choreographer, living an awesome and strangely grown up life in Oakland, CA. Her interests and activist work include, but are not limited to: self-care, feminism, sexual assault and interpersonal violence prevention and advocacy, storytelling, dance, queers, femmes, fashion, baking killer peanut-butter cookies, and passionate karaoke performances. She is currently adapting her research thesis on eating disorders, narrative construction, and embodied practice into a book, and will talk about it at length if you let her. Pidge resides with her wife and Cleis, the littlest of pomegranate trees.

Upcoming queer trans women & cis women events!

2012-01-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

First, SF Bay Area folks, save the date: On Thursday, March 29th, me & my co-curators Gina de Vries and Elena Rose will be presenting the fourth annual Girl Talk, a cis and trans woman dialogue! Rest assured, I will be posting more details in the very near future. (more info about Girl Talk more generally, including video clips from the 2011 show, can be found by following the above link)...

Also, speaking of events that foster dialogue between queer cis and queer trans women, last week I tweeted about the following conference, but for those who missed it:

this Saturday (January 21) in Toronto is an awesome day-long event called: No More Apologies: Queer Trans and Cis Women, Coming/Cumming Together! All the details are available in that link.

Yay, lots of awesome art & community building! more to come! -j.

Femme conference call for submissions

2012-01-19T12:19:00.000-08:00

Hi folks, just figured I would pass this along, as some folks who follow my blog might be interested. It is a press release from the Femme 2012 conference, which will be in Baltimore this August. Not sure if I will be there, given that it is kinda sorta on the other side of the country from me. But if you have an interest in attending or presenting in some capacity, I encourage you to check it out... -j.

.......................

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

National Call for Submissions & SF Event!
Call for Workshops, Papers, Panels, Films, Performance, and Visual Art Femme2012: Pulling the Pieces Together
Baltimore, MD
August 17-19, 2012
www.femmecollective.com

Femme2012: Pulling the Pieces Together is a multi-threaded conference and forum for those who think about, talk about, and create Femme as a queer gender and identity.

Following our Femme2006, 2008, and 2010 conferences in San Francisco, Chicago, and Oakland, where hundreds of femmes and allies gathered for workshops, panels, films, visual art galleries, and performances, we again invite femmes of all kinds and their allies to continue the conversation by participating in Femme 2012 as presenters and participants.We are invested in having Femme2012 continue to reflect the diversity and complexity of femme gender, identity, and contributions. We hope for this conference to be a community-building event, as well as an exploration and celebration of what it means to build and live queer femme identities.

Submissions of all kinds are welcome, particularly submissions by Femmes. We are committed to having our presenters reflect as many different voices from within our Femme community(ies) as possible. We aim to prioritize and centralize the experiences of historically marginalized groups, including but not limited to people of color, working-class people, fat folks, trans and gender-non-conforming people, elders, youth, previously incarcerated individuals, people without documentation, and people with dis/abilities. Femme2012 will continue the community dialogues from Femme2006, Femme2008, and Femme2010. In particular, we hope that the intersections of femme with race, region, class, access, dis/ability, privilege, oppression, and marginalization will be talked about, given space, meditated upon, constructed, and deconstructed.

In addition, we encourage submissions based on this year’s theme: Pulling the Pieces Together.

We began this conference in 2006 out of a desire to see femme explored and discussed from a variety of perspectives. We wanted a conference that held the complexities of Queer Femme as its central focus, while building community. Building on the dialogue and momentum of past conferences, in 2012 we hope to explore how femmes pull the pieces together. Through discussion and performance, we hope to explore both our individual and shared journeys to femme and how we honor femme in ourselves and others. How do we arrive at our femme/inine identities? How do we celebrate the joys and challenges along those journeys? Please join us in 2012 as we share our stories of pulling the pieces together.

We hope to draw participants from across disciplinary, medium, and social boundaries. We encourage submissions from anyone interested, regardless of gender or sexual identity. We are interested in solo submissions, as well as groups, panels, and collaborations. We are looking for well-thought-out, well-planned submissions that recognize and respect the array of Queer Femme experience, and we are interested in work that challenges systems of oppression.

We are soliciting contributions from anyone interested, including (but not limited to):
> workshops
> panel presentations
> performances
> research presentations
> skill shares
> activist & organizational topics
> visual art
> video or film (please see below for the film call for submissions)

The submission deadline is April 15, 2012. For information about specific submissions requirements and to submit your proposal, please visit www.femme2012.com.

To learn more about us, to read our mission, and to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns, please find us at www.femme2012.com or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/groups/femmeconference/.

2012 FEMME FILM FESTIVAL at FEMME2012
In addition, this year the Femme Collective encourages all femmes (regardless of experience) to consider making and submitting a short film to the 2012 Femme Film Festival that will be taking place at Femme2012. We want to challenge you tell your story from *your* eyes. All you need is a camera (even an iPhone is good enough!) and we'll even help mentor you along the way! It could be narrative-based, documentary, animated or some kind of in-between. How you choose to make it is yours - but the film must be made by a femme (or group of femmes) and about being femme. In order to help you get started, please include one or more of the following prompts in planning your femme-tastic short film:
- What does Femme mean to you?
- How did you come to / learn you were Femme?
- Misconceptions of Femme and how to change them
- Femme Invisibility
- Being Femme because *we* are Femme (and not because our body looks a certain way)

Submissions for the Femme Film Festival must be under 12 minutes in length. The shorter, the better --- so we can fit more films into our final program! All film submissions are due July 15, 2012, to give you ample time to finish your film. Do not let your lack of experience stop you from making a film! We will not be judging films based on fancy equipment - we're looking for honest, brave and real stories about *your* experience of being femme. So break out that iPhone or Flip Camera and start shooting! If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail Ellie (our film chair) at ellieheartbeth@gmail.com.

Attn: Bay Area Femmes & Allies! Special Femme Con Happy Hour at El Rio THIS FRIDAY!
Join us at El Rio this Friday, Jan. 20th, from 4-6pm for a very special Femme 2012 Conference Happy Hour! For every drink ordered at the bar during these two hours, 100% of the proceeds will go directly to funding the conference! Come drink & be merry with friends and loved ones all while supporting the all-volunteer run Femme Collective and the wider Femme community!

Need more incentive? How about free oysters, amazing drink specials, and FREE ADMISSIONS to the Red Hots Burlesque show starting at 7:30pm? Order up your Pink Lady or your Shirley Temple, then watch Dottie Lux, Isis Starr, Ava Lavendar and more shimmy-shake for the Femme Con crowd!

Come on down and support the Femme Conference! It will be the easiest fundraiser you attend all year!

El Rio is located at 3158 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA. - www.elriosf.com

Adjustments (a 2011 personal retrospective)

2012-01-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone!

So back in the early fall of 2010, I set a goal for myself: I promised myself that I would finish writing my (currently untitled) second book by the end of 2011. It was a new years resolution of sorts, albeit made several months in advance of Janurary 1st. However, sometimes in life, things do not go quite as planned.

When I made that commitment, what I did not know was that the minor “scalp problem” I was dealing with would eventually blossom into my first major full-on psoriasis flare up. At the time, I was unaware that I had the condition. In fact, I did not even know what psoriasis was, although later I would find out that it was the condition that was responsible for all the scabs that covered my grandmother’s legs, which I remember from back when I was a kid. And I would later find out that several other relatives on that side of my family had it too, although they covered it up by always wearing long sleeves and long pants. Even though it ran in the family, no one ever really talked about it (or at least they did not talk about it around me).

In early November 2010, after one of the most restless nights of my life (and I’ve had quite a few of those along the way), as my scalp literally felt like it was on fire, I made an emergency appointment to see my dermatologist. She told me that it was psoriasis. She prescribed me really hardcore topical meds for it, which helped ease the burning, but it did not make my psoriasis go away. In fact, as that month progressed, I noticed that P patches were appearing on other parts of my body.

This time last year (around new years 2011), I was absolutely miserable. Miserable, because my scalp still itched and burned—it was so red, that on Christmas day, my nieces kept asking me how I got sunburned on the top of my head. Miserable, because the scalp psoriasis, in combination with the plaque removal treatments I was prescribed, led to me losing almost half of the hair on my head (I am honestly not exaggerating). Miserable, because the cold and dry winter weather in Philadelphia (where my family lives) exacerbated my condition, and by the time it was over, I had patches (symmetrically, on both sides of the body) on my neck, chest, belly button, knees, shins, and fingers. I was miserable, because the P on my fingers made them so sensitive, I could not type for more than 5 minutes at a time. Miserable, because while paging through a Time Magazine at my Dad’s house, I saw an ad for Enbrel, the immunosuppressant my dermatologist suggested as the next potential step if my topical meds weren’t doing the trick (and they seemingly weren’t). The Enbrel ad was three pages long: One page for all the benefits of the drug, followed by two pages (in small print, of course) for all of the nasty side effects.

So this time last year, upon returning from my family Christmas visit, I decided I was going to take things into my own hands. I joined a psoriasis message board and began to consume all the posts. I did exhaustive internet and PubMed searches (a bonus of being a biologist at a university is that I have access to, and am familiar enough with the bio/medical jargon to understand, all the scientific literature on the subject). I sought out, and followed up on, every clue that I could find that might possibly lead to some way to send my P back into remission.

Over the last year, I cannot tell you how many articles I’ve read about psoriasis and auto-immune conditions; about how the immune system functions, and how it is affected by diet, stress and sleep; about the complex back-and-forth communication that goes on between the brain, the skin, the gut, and its microbial flora. Over the course of the last year, I tried all sorts of potential psoriasis remedies, both scientific and anecdotal: I changed my diet in various ways, took supplements of various sorts, exercised, slept more, took up meditation, took baths in Dead Sea salts and lemon Joy (seriously, some people swear by the lemon Joy), spent time in the sun, tried applying glycerol, oils and various sorts of lotions onto my skin, and so on.

Eventually, I found the right combination that seemed to improve my situation.* By March and April 2011, all of my P patches disappeared except for my scalp, which still persists, but it is not nearly as bad as it was. All my hair grew back. I am still reading, and still experimenting, in the hopes that I can drive my P completely into remission. But for now, it seems that we (aka, my will, my skin, and my immune system) have reached a status quo with regards to the whole P-thing.

So 2011 was a very different year than I initially planned it to be. I made very little progress on book #2. But on the other hand, I did learn more than I ever could have imagined about psoriasis, the immune system, diet, and related topics. And as a bonus, all the extra sleep I got in the first half of 2011 allowed me to really become well-versed at lucid dreaming! But most important of all, I learned a crucial life lesson in 2011, one that led to the title of this post: Adjustments.

So to explain what I mean by “adjustments,” I am going to have to briefly digress into a discussion of baseball (sorry sports haters! but I promise, this will be relatively painless, and well worth your patience).

So baseball happens to be my favorite sport—in fact, it is the only sport that I follow these days. When people ask me (sometimes incredulously!) why I like baseball, I often bring up how nostalgic it is for me. When I was a young child, I wanted to grow up to be a Major League Baseball player (who knows, under different circumstances, I may have turned out to be the first MLB trans woman middle infielder!). I also first decided to change my sex at a little league game, and writing and publicly singing a song about that experience became one of the very first somewhat “out-as-trans” moments in my life.

Aside from nostalgia and the intersection with my trans experiences, there are other things that I like about baseball. I like the strategy, and how there is time between each play to consider what the next best move would be. I like the long history of the game, and how it has become the most diverse sport with regard to ethnicity and the size/shape/ability of players’ bodies. And it is one of the only sports where, no matter how badly you are losing, no matter how late in the game, you can always come back and win (because there are no time limits). All these aspects make the game enjoyable for me. But the thing that I find most amazing about baseball is (as baseball pundits often say) it is “a game of adjustments.”

What does that mean? Well, in pretty much every other sport, if you are a great athlete at your position, and if you have talent, and if you stay healthy, it is almost guaranteed that you will be great every year. But in baseball, you can come into the majors and have one or two great years. However, because it is a game where pitchers face batters one-on-one, over time, people will eventually figure out your vulnerabilities. They will realize that you can’t hit a certain pitch, or they will figure out how to hit your curve ball, or they will notice that you are prone to making some particular mistake, etc. And when they do find out your vulnerability, they will exploit it. Unless, of course, you compensate.

Many players have one or two good years, and then fade away. But the great players (as they say) make adjustments. Once other teams start figuring them out, and once they start slumping, they change their routine. Their batting stance. The way they throw the ball. Perhaps even their entire approach to the game. These are athletes who have played baseball their entire lives, and yet, sometimes they have to start all over from scratch, and learn how to do things in an entirely new way, all in order to compensate for their new situation. Making adjustments is what a baseball player needs to do in order to persevere.

So as I was saying, this time last year, I was in a bad place. I was miserable, not only because of my physical pain, but because at that time I was only able to view my situation in terms of loss—how having P interfered with my life, interfered with my writing, made it difficult for me to do some of the things that I like to do, and so on. But shortly thereafter, it struck me that life (to borrow the baseball saying) “is a game of adjustments.” So instead of seeing P in wholly negative terms, I began viewing it as simply a new life situation that I now needed to adapt to.

Today, as I contemplate the beginning of a new year, a couple thoughts spring into my mind. First, I am grateful for my relatively good health at this moment. But I know that this is something that I cannot take for granted. My P is in remission, but of course, remission means that it could come back at any time. I am at peace with that, because I know that if that does happen, I will simply make the adjustments I need to make.

But in addition to that, when I think about the upcoming year, I realize that I am viewing it in a somewhat novel way, at least for me. I always used to think of my future in a rather linear way. I’d make goals for myself. I would think about where I wanted to be one year from now, in my career, writing, performance, relationships, family, etc. I would think about all the places that I wanted to go, and the things that I wanted to do during that time frame.

But this year, in the wake of what has been a very transformative year for me, when I think about where I will be this time next year, and what all I will accomplish between now and then, I honestly do not know what to expect. I am not making any assumptions about where I will be or what I will be doing. I expect that my life will be somewhat similar to what it is now, but I also expect that a number of unexpected things will enter into my life. Hopefully most of them will be good. But some of them may be bad. And when they happen, rather than viewing them as potential obstacles or obstructions, I will instead see them as new life situations, and I will make the appropriate adjustments. And upon making those adjustments, my life will become different than what it is now. And I am OK with that.

I used to see my life as a linear path, and that perspective led me to view unexpected circumstances as detours or potential dead ends. But now, I see my life as having the potential to veer off in all sorts of directions. And if my life takes an unexpected turn, no worries, that will simply be the new path that I am on.

Having said all that, I am not completely without goals or direction. I am working hard to finish writing book #2 before the end of this year (hopefully sooner!). I suppose you could say that this is my new year’s resolution, in that I am working hard toward that goal. But unlike the previous year, this year, I am well aware that I may have to adjust that plan if my life situation requires it.

-julia

p.s., I promise that book # 2 will not have any baseball in it!

*So some people who read this may have psoriasis or some other auto-immune condition, and may be curious/interested in what precisely helped send my P mostly into remission. At some point, I plan to write about my self-care regime in more detail. But in short, most of the positive changes I made are described in Jack Challem’s book The Inflammation Syndrome. Basically, the book discusses the ways in which the modern Western diet exacerbates inflammation, and based on it, I decided to cut out/cut down certain foods, plus take certain supplements (especially those that adjust the omega 3/6 ratio (btw, GLA is the bomb!)). Also, my P flare up occurred not too long after I was on antibiotics for a month, and disturbances in gut microflora are known to send the immune system into a tizzy. So I’ve found that taking probiotics and other IBS-related remedies have been helpful for me as well.

Ten years ago today...

2011-12-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

So I have been a bit lax with regards to blogging lately. After a bunch of September and October posts, I became swamped with a number of out-of-town university presentations and local panels & book readings. I have also been trying to focus in earnest on book number two. It had been going rather slowly, in a somewhat piecemeal fashion. So I have committed myself to waking up extra early (5 or 6am) each day to get a solid 2 or 3 hours of writing in before heading off to work (that is how I managed to write Whipping Girl). On the bright side, I have been making good progress! The downside has been less sleep and less time for blogging...

Also, I want to thanks everyone for all the quotes from queer women who partner with trans women and/or cis men. I plan to compile them this month - as soon as I do, I will put them up on my blog, I promise! (and for those still interested, I'd be happy to accept more submissions until then). So those who follow my blog, you have that to look forward to. Plus I will likely be posting some small excerpts of book #2 along the way...

But in the meantime, I really wanted to make a point to post today because it is a very special anniversary for me. Exactly ten years ago today, I began living as a woman. Granted, it is a somewhat arbitrary date, as I was female-identified well before then, and people were reading/treating me as female before then. But basically, it was the day that I officially stopped using my old male name and presenting myself as male.

It is soooooooo hard to believe that it's been ten years! I remember being on a trans email list when I was first looking into transitioning, and sharing an exchange with a trans woman who said that she had been living "full time" for a year and a half. And I remember being in awe of that. I was so anxious to transition, and the idea of being a whopping year and a half post-transition seemed absolutely mind-blowing. Now here I am ten years post-transition. Who'd a thunk it?

This whole late November/early December time period is chock full of trans related anniversaries (tranniversaries?) for me. November 27, 2000 was the day when I kinda sorta made the decision to transition. And two years ago tomorrow (December 7th) was the date of my bottom surgery. I feel the desire to commemorate all of these anniversaries by saying something really really profound. But despite all my efforts to be poignant, only two simple thoughts come to mind:

I am truly grateful to be where I am now.

And time flies like the wind. (But fruit flies like bananas.)...

julia events update november 2011

2011-11-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, I hope this update finds you well!

So like I said in my last update, I have a veritable slew of events (both SF Bay Area & out of town) this November! here they are:

1) Out of town

On Monday, November 7, I will be at Amherst College, MA giving a presentation called "Putting the Feminine Back Into Feminism". It will take place on campus at the Paino Lecture Hall, Beneski Earth Sciences Building from 8:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. More info can be found here:
http://events.amherst.edu/2011/11/07/4442/
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=105631346213920
Directions: For a map of the Amherst College campus, visit https://www.amherst.edu/map/ Questions? e-mail pridealliance@amherst.edu

then the very next day - Tuesday November 8th - I will be at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA giving a presentation called "I'll See It When I Believe It: On Experience, Perception and Gender Entitlement". It will be at Miller Learning Center & Adinkra Hall (Memorial Hall) at 6:30pm.

2) local Bay Area events

it has been a while since I have read or performed locally in the San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley Bay Area. Well, as a wise man once said: "when it rains it snows!" Here are the five (count 'em, 5!) local events I'll be at in November:

--Thursday, November 10 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location: Books Inc. in the Castro (2275 MARKET ST)
book release for the new anthology:
TRANS/LOVE: RADICAL SEX, LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS BEYOND THE GENDER BINARY
Writers who will be reading (besides me) include: Morty Diamond, Shawna Virago, Vera Sepulveda, Taylor Xavier, and perhaps a surprise guest!
plus Morty will print some of my HELLA TRANS t shirtS to sell (for just the cost of the shirt: $4.00!!!)

--Friday, November 11, from 8:00pm - 9:30pm
Ceremonial Room, LGBT Center, 1800 Market Street, San Francisco
TRANS/GENDERING THE VOICE: JULIA SERANO IN CONVERSATION WITH STEPHAN PENNINGTON
sponsored by the AMS-LGBTQ STUDY GROUP MEETING
The program will consist of roughly one hour of conversation (about my music, writing and performance) followed by a half hour of questions.
more details can be found here:
http://events.sfgate.com/san-francisco-ca/events/show/208588466-transgendering-the-voice-julia-serano-in-conversation-with-stephan-pennington

--Thursday, November 17, 5:00-7:00
Location: UC Berkeley campus, Gender Equity Resource Center (202 Chavez)
“Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love & Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary”
so this is another Trans/Love book reading, but just Morty and me this time, so there will likely be a longer Q&A.
more details here: http://geneq.berkeley.edu/transgender

--November 28, 7:00 pm
Books Inc. Alameda
Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica book reading
Readers will include editor Tristan Taormino, plus Dean Scarborough, Evan Swafford, Shawna Virago and myself.
Location: Books Inc. 1344 Park Street, Alameda, CA 510-522-2226 (Twitter: @BooksIncEvents)
Admission: Free and open to all.

--November 29, 7:30 pm
Books Inc. (Castro/SF)
Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica book reading
Readers will include editor Tristan Taormino, plus Gina deVries, Shawna Virago, Michael Hernandez, Dean Scarborough, Evan Swafford and myself.
Location: Books Inc., 2257 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 415-864-6777 (Twitter: @BooksIncEvents)
Admission: Free and open to all.

..............
oh, and btw, if you are interested in either or both of these anthologies, but cannot make those events, here's what you need to know:

"Trans/Love" (edited by Morty Diamond) includes pieces by Shawna Virago, Sassafras Lowery, Max Valerio, Silas Howard, Joelle Ruby Ryan, Ashley Altadonna, Cooper Lee Bombardier and others. My contribution, entitled "Cherry Picking," is about my many experiences with "virginity" over the course of my life.

for a preview, here is the amazon site for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Trans-Love-Radical-Relationships-Beyond/dp/1933149566
but be sure to buy it at a local, independent bookstore if you can!

also, there will be YouTube videos for many of the pieces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xVvRc-Fg_Y
here is the link to a short excerpt of my piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwT_Ruufqxk

Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica (edited by Tristan Taormino) includes pieces by Kate Bornstein, Patrick Califia, S. Bear Bergman, Ivan Coyote, Laura Antoniou, Helen Boyd, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Toni Amato, Alicia E. Goranson, Tobi Hill-Meyer, Gina de Vries and others. My contribution happens to be about my long ago brief experimentation with a recreational drug that begins with a V...

for a preview, here is the amazon site for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Take-Me-There-Genderqueer-Erotica/dp/157344720X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314479942&sr=8-1
but be sure to buy it at a local, independent bookstore if you can!

also, here is a post from Tristian's blog about the anthology:
http://tristantaormino.tumblr.com/post/6556984945/take-me-there-trans-and-genderqueer-erotica-is-my

...............

there it is. I obviously have a lot on my plate this month, hope to see y'all somewhere along the way!

Best wishes, -julia

website: http://www.juliaserano.com
blog: http://juliaserano.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Juliaserano
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Serano/277728205577201?ref=ts

two upcoming events!

2011-10-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

hi all, for those interested in catching my readings, performances and/or presentations, you may be in luck, as I have two out-of-town college presentations this month, and a slew of events (both out of town & local Bay Area) in November. here are links to the two October events. In the next week or so, I will post a second update that will list all the November events...

Next Saturday, October 22nd, I will be giving a keynote talk at the Translating Identity Conference at University of Vermont (Burlington, VT). For more details, check out their website at: http://www.uvm.edu/~tic/

Following that, on Monday October 24th, I will be at Stetson University in Florida giving a presentation entitled Trans Feminism: A Performance and Discussion. More details can be found here: https://www.stetson.edu/secure/programs/calendar/view.php?id=19784

OK, that's it for now. Like I said, more details to come... -j.

Seeking quotes from queer women who partner with trans women and/or cis men

2011-10-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

As a bisexual femme-identified trans woman, I have long been interested in (and concerned by) how the borders of queer women’s communities are policed - where certain people, actions and ways of being are seen as legitimately queer while others are not.

In my own community, I have found two different recurring complaints along these lines that I wish to chronicle for an essay I am working on:

1) despite the fact that T is supposedly included in LGBT, many queer women find that when they are dating/partnered to a trans woman, their queer credentials suddenly become questioned or are seen as suspect in a way that is not the case when queer women date/partner with trans men.

2) despite the fact that B is supposedly included in LGBT, many queer women find that when they are dating/partnered to a cis man, their queer credentials suddenly become questioned or are seen as suspect in a way that is not the case when queer women date/partner with trans men.

(*see further notes of clarification below)

If you have any personal anecdotes/experiences/stories that speak to either of these two scenarios, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share your quotes with me.

For each scenario that you wish to share, please write a brief paragraph or two describing your experiences (btw, you may submit more than one scenario/paragraph). Depending on how many quotes I receive, I hope to 1) compile all the quotes into a single blog post that will appear on my blog (http://juliaserano.blogspot.com), and 2) potentially excerpt your quote in my future writings (e.g., in my next my book and/or articles that appear elsewhere).

For those interested, please send your quotes to me at: hi at juliaserano dot com. I can assure you that YOUR NAME AND CONTACT INFO WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED OR SHARED WITH ANYONE. Please paste the text into the body of the email (no attachments please). In the email, please also include a statement along the following lines: “I certify that all of the provided information is true to the best of my knowledge, and I give Julia Serano permission to post these quotes on her website and to allow her to excerpt them in her future writings.”

Feel free to include any other contextual information that you feel is necessary to accurately convey what happened. Also, keep in mind that other people may eventually be reading these quotes, so be sure to omit any unimportant info that you feel might place your (or anyone else’s) anonymity in jeopardy (e.g., where you live or work, people’s names, etc.). Also, I will not be editing these quotes at all (except possibly for length), so you might want to double-check for spelling mistakes and typos.

For the record, this work is not the part of any kind of “research project.” I am approaching this subject as both a queer/bi/trans activist and as a journalist who wants to chronicle what is deemed “queer” (or “not queer”) within contemporary queer women’s communities.

Feel free to cross-post this request on any LGBTQ-focused websites/blogs/email lists at your discretion. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at the email address mentioned above.

Thanks in advance!
-julia

P.S., for the record, I am *not* claiming or insinuating that queer women who date/partner with trans men do not receive any flak within queer women’s communities for their partner choices. I am merely saying that their partner choices tend to be significantly more accepted in queer women’s circles than queer women who partner with trans women or cis men.

P.S.S., I also want to clarify that I am certainly *not* by any means insinuating that dating a trans woman = dating a cis man. Trans women are women, and cis men are men. I am interested in both of these cases, not because they are equivalent, but because they reveal ways in which B and T inclusion in queer women’s communities is highly conditional.

P.S.S.S., finally, I want to stress that when I say “queer women,” I am talking about people who navigate their way through the world as women (whether cis or trans), and who are queer-identified in some way (e.g., lesbian, bisexual, dyke, pansexual, queer, polysexual, and potentially many other queer identities not explicitly listed here).

My adventures in sexology (plus a Call for Submissions!)

2011-10-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

My life has taken a number of interesting turns over the last ten years. And I am not talking about my transition here - if you would have told me 20 years ago that I would eventually transition to female, I would not have been especially surprised. However, if you would have told me back then that I would someday spend a great deal of my free time writing about feminism, and that some of those writings would be taught in gender studies classes, I never would have believed you in a million years.

The same holds true with regards to me being taken seriously in (some) sexology circles. I first became interested in the field as I was beginning to work on Whipping Girl (WG). Specifically, I saw a connection between how trans women and others on the trans female/feminine spectrum were sexualized in the media and how we were similarly sexualized in certain sexology & psychology theories. So, I did a lot of research on those theories and critiqued them in WG (specifically in Chapters 7, 14 & 17). At that point, I felt like I said what needed to be said, and I was ready to move on.

But after WG came out, I had a Michael Corleone-like moment: “Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in.” Specifically, two things happened that lead to me re-immersing myself in sexological theories about trans folks. The first was Alice Dreger’s high profile exoneration of J. Michael Bailey (who wrote the super-highly-problematic book The Man Who Would Be Queen). After writing briefly about this matter on Feministing, I decided to write a comment on Dreger’s article (called A Matter of Perspective: A Transsexual Woman-Centric Critique of Alice Dreger’s “Scholarly History” of the Bailey Controversy), which was eventually published in Archives of Sexual Behavior. For those especially interested in the minutia of this debate, I also recorded a podcast of sorts called Even More Dreger Critiquing.

Then there was the 2008 announcement that Ken Zucker & Ray Blanchard (among others) were to play lead roles in creating the trans-specific diagnoses that would appear in the next DSM. Now lots of trans & LGBT activists are familiar with Zucker’s “reparative therapy” for gender-non-conforming children. But most people outside of trans women’s circles are unfamiliar with Blanchard, who is responsible for creating what I feel is the most sexualizing and stigmatizing of all sexology theories regarding trans people: autogynephilia.

I won’t go into the details regarding autogynephilia here (too much to say in too little space), but for those interested, I explain why the theory is so problematic (as well as why certain sexological & psychological theories & diagnoses of trans people are so harmful) in my 2009 Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference keynote talk “Psychology, Sexualization and Trans-Invalidations” and on my web page Debunking Psychological Depictions of Transsexuality and Transgenderism. Anyway, when Blanchard was selected to chair the Paraphilia section of the DSM, my biggest fear as a trans woman was that he would try to make autogynephilia an official diagnosis. I felt that the only thing that might potentially help thwart that effort was if the theory was critiqued in a peer-reviewed sexological journal (as academic/peer-reviewed publications are the only ones that carry any weight in that field).

After much work, my review article entitled “The Case Against Autogynephilia” was finally published in the International Journal of Transgenderism last fall. Right around the same time, Charles Moser published his review article "Blanchard's Autogynephilia Theory: A Critique" in the Journal of Homosexuality. His article is excellent and makes similar points as mine, although unlike Moser, I believe that the term “autogynephilia” should be rejected for reasons explained in my article. [For those interested, a PDF of my article is currently up on the LearningTrans.org website. If that link does not work, I am allowed to share this article with a limited number of interested colleagues. So if any of you in the fields of trans health, psychology, advocacy and/or activism are interested in obtaining a copy of this article, please email me and I'd be happy to send you a copy.]

So anyway, that leads me to my very latest unexpected sexological endeavor: I was recently invited to be a guest reviewer for a special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality focusing on “Trans Sexualities.” While I do not know *all* of the guest reviewers, the ones that I am familiar with carry out research that positively benefits trans folks, and there are other trans voices on the review board in addition to myself (e.g., Susan Stryker and Aaron Devor). I am pasting the call for submissions below. So if you know any academic/research/sexology/gender & queer studies folks out there who may be interested, please feel free to forward this call for submissions onto them...

-julia

p.s., a point of clarification: The journal is called "The Journal of Homosexuality" for historical reasons. Despite the apparent narrowness of the name, it is a sexuality-focused journal that discusses sexuality-related issues for a variety of sexual & gender minorities.
.....................

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY: “Trans Sexualities”

GUEST EDITOR:
CARLA A. PFEFFER, SOCIOLOGY, PURDUE UNIVERSITY NORTH CENTRAL
SPECIAL EDITORIAL BOARD:
WALTER O. BOCKTING, PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA NICOLA BROWN, PSYCHOLOGY, PRIV A TE PRACTICE IN ONTARIO, CANADA AARON H. DEVOR, SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA MARCIA OCHOA, ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA CRUZ TAM SANGER, SOCIOLOGY, ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY JULIA SERANO, BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY SUSAN STRYKER, HISTORY AND GENDER STUDIES, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY SALV ADOR VIDAL-ORTIZ, SOCIOLOGY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

The Journal of Homosexuality invites the submission of extended abstracts for a special issue expected to publish in Fall 2012.

In this volume, we seek to not only conceptually disentangle gender and sexual identities, but to reveal the myriad ways in which their intersections can be both illuminating and perplexing. To date, in academic scholarship on LGBTQ sexualities, “transgender” too often remains present in acronym only, with very real consequences for inclusion and exclusion both in terms of transgender and transsexual personhood as well as to moving studies of gender and sexual identities, and sexual practices (including sexual labor) forward. In this special issue, we seek proposals for papers that focus critically on sexual identities and practices among transgender and transsexual individuals and their partners to begin to fill the existing lacuna in scholarship and theorizing around transgender and transsexual sexualities. To this end, we seek papers that address (but are not limited to) the following issues and topics:

• Trans identities complicating binary notions of “gay,” “lesbian,” and “bisexual” sexualities (e.g., the experiences of gay trans men and lesbian trans women, making meaning of the term and concept of “hetero/homo/bi/sexuality” in the context of trans identity, how trans sexualities contribute to the “queering” of sexualities in general)
• “Doing” masculinity, femininity, and androgyny as a trans person in the context of sexual identity and how sexual identities of trans people and their partners are often (mis)“read” and (mis)understood
• Fluidity (or not) of sexual identities and/or practices in the lives of those who are trans and/or their sexual partners
• The role of language in shaping sexual identities and/or practices among trans people and/or their sexual partners• Trans persons’ engagement with sex work and sexualized labor
• International representations, understandings, and depictions of trans sexualities
• Fetishization and commodification of trans sexualities—including the phenomenon, impacts, and effects of trans (in/hyper)visibility in the media (e.g., trans sexual voyeurism)
• Intersections between trans bodies and trans sexualities
• Trans sex, sexualities, and partnerships (and the challenges of conducting ethical scholarship around these issues considering the history of exploitive representations of transgender and transsexual lives)
• Inclusion and exclusion of trans people within sexual rights movements and potentials for coalition building across social movements focusing on sexualities
• Sexual safety and wellbeing of trans persons (and consideration of safer sex practices, sexual marginalization, sexual harassment, sexual assault, access to healthcare)
• “Counting” trans people (to ensure that trans people count)—demographic studies of trans sexualities
• Reviews of institutions, services, and programs that provide services and programs that include (or don’t) focus on trans sexualities
• Methods for studying trans sexual identities, sexual practices, and sexual partnerships (and, further, identity and standpoint of the “researcher” and “researched”—how identity matters, considerations of cissexual and cisgender privilege)

We currently seek 1,200-1,500 word extended abstracts for proposed papers that provide a title, brief summary of your central arguments and evidence used to support these arguments, methods to investigate the topic under study (if applicable), and how your proposed paper contributes to, challenges, and/or extends existing scholarship on trans sexualities. Please be clear about the current status of the proposed paper in terms of whether it is at an incipient or advanced stage and provide a brief statement on how you intend to complete the final paper by March 2012. We seek proposals for both theoretical and empirical papers. International work and work by trans scholars is particularly encouraged. All abstracts and papers will undergo blinded peer review by a Special Editorial Board of interdisciplinary trans and non-trans scholars conversant with ethical scholarship on trans issues. To facilitate blind review, please prepare a cover page with your name, contact information, and proposal title, but do not include your name or other identifying information on subsequent pages—do include your proposal title at the top of each page. Send inquiries and extended abstracts to the Guest Editor of this Special Issue, Carla A. Pfeffer, at cpfeffer@purdue.edu by November 1, 2011. Final manuscripts should be approximately 7,500 words (about 25 pages) and will be due in March 2012.

WPATH releases new Standards of Care

2011-09-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I received an email from the group TransActive that announced the WPATH (aka, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) just released the latest Standards of Care. For those not in the know, basically these are guidelines for healthcare providers to consider/follow to address the needs of trans clients, particularly in situations where social/physical/legal transition is involved.

For those interested in perusing them, they can be downloaded at this link:
http://ugcs.net/~irene/drop/soc.pdf

I am too busy the next few weeks to thoroughly go through them, but I will certainly be interested in hearing other people's thoughts in the days/weeks that follow...

Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue 2011 video

2011-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Hello again, welcome to day three of "link week" (I missed yesterday), where I share links related to my writing and activism. Today's installment is quite overdue...

So as many of you know, over the last three years, I've had the honor of working with Gina de Vries and Elena Rose (aka, Little Light) to co-curate the annual spoken word event Girl Talk: a Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue. Unfortunately, the show has only occurred in the SF Bay Area so far (although we are hoping to bring the show to other cities & towns next year!). To date, the only way people from other places have been able to experience the show is through an mp3 audio recording (of questionable quality) of the 2009 show (a link to that recording can be found here).

*note: we hope to eventually make a similar recording of the 2010 show available at some point...

But now, thanks to the wonderful folks at Handbasket Productions, videos of the entire 2011 Girl Talk show can be viewed on YouTube! fyi, I was the emcee this year, so I did not contribute a piece per se. but I do give a several minute into to the event in the first "Girl Talk 2011 Intro" clip.

It was an amazing show, and it is all available to you via one simple link. Enjoy! -j.

upcoming anthologies!

2011-09-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

OK, welcome to day two of "link week," where I share links related to my writing and activism...

So today, I want to let folks know that I have pieces included in two anthologies being released this fall, both of which are about trans love/sex/relationships!

Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love & Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary (edited by Morty Diamond, published by Manic D Press) includes pieces by Shawna Virago, Sassafras Lowery, Max Valerio, Silas Howard, Joelle Ruby Ryan, Ashley Altadonna, Cooper Lee Bombardier and others. My contribution, entitled "Cherry Picking," is about my many experiences with "virginity" over the course of my life.

for a preview, here is the amazon site for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Trans-Love-Radical-Relationships-Beyond/dp/1933149566
but be sure to buy it at a local, independent bookstore if you can!

also, there are YouTube video excerpts for many of the pieces, including a video excerpt of my piece "Cherry Picking".

The second soon-to-be-released anthology I will be in is Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica (edited by Tristan Taormino, published by Cleis Press), which includes pieces by Kate Bornstein, Patrick Califia, S. Bear Bergman, Ivan Coyote, Laura Antoniou, Helen Boyd, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Toni Amato, Alicia E. Goranson, Tobi Hill-Meyer, Gina de Vries and others. My contribution happens to be about my long ago brief experimentation with a certain designer drug...

for a preview, here is the amazon site for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Take-Me-There-Genderqueer-Erotica/dp/157344720X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314479942&sr=8-1
but be sure to buy it at a local, independent bookstore if you can!

also, you can read this post from Tristian's blog to find out even more about the anthology...

I will most likely take part in SF Bay Area book readings for both books this fall - I will let you know about those once I have more details...

that's it for now. more links tomorrow... -j.

Link week!

2011-09-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

OK, so after spending 2 weeks ago blogging about, and replying to, my whole "transsexual vs transsexual" intervention, and taking last week to recuperate from all that, I figured that this week I would ease back into blogging by sharing a bunch of links related to my writing, performance and activism.

I will start today by sharing this link to an interview with me that appeared Friday on Persephone Magazine.

more to come tomorrow... -j.

Postscript for my “TS-vs-TG-Intervention” piece

2011-09-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

So in the couple days since my blog entry A “Transsexual Versus Transgender” Intervention came out, I have spent a big chunk of my free time pouring over all the responses - both comments made on my own blog, plus all the comments that appeared when it was cross-posted on The Transadvocate and tagged on numerous Facebook threads. I knew I was writing about a hotly debated topic, so I am not *too* surprised that the piece generated interest (both positive and negative). But I am a bit overwhelmed by how many responses there actually were.

While I have read all of the comments, I don’t have the time to reply to each comment individually since there have been so many. So here, I will respond more generally to sentiments that seem to have come up on more than one occasion. Occasionally I will cite or quote specific individuals, but other times I will discuss some of the sentiments/reactions more generally.

Note: I am making this a separate post so that it can be linked to more easily, and so that people who follow me on Twitter, Facebook and NetworkedBlogs will be notified of this post. I will also paste it into the comments sections of my original blog entry and the Transadvocate blog entry.

1) Many negative reactions to the piece stressed the ways in which cis gay and lesbian folks are dismissive of transsexuals. I certainly agree that such sentiments exist, and a lot of my previous writings (e.g., Whipping Girl, my “frustration” web page, and all blog posts tagged with “frustration”) discuss this. However, I completely disagree with the monolithic portrayal that all cis lesbian and gay folks are this way. Many cis lesbian and gay folks are sincerely informed about, and supportive of, transsexuals. If you have not met anyone who fits this description, it is probably because you are not active in gay/lesbian/queer spaces on a regular basis.

2) Marlene (posting on my blog) brought up the history of how all people who currently identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, etc., were generally described by others, and often self-identified, as gay up until the 1970s. This is something that I did not discuss in my post, but which is obviously pertinent. So the idea that transsexuals, or transgender people, have nothing to do with LGB folks is ahistorical.

3) Along similar lines, several replies reiterated that sexual orientation is totally different from gender identity in their attempts to separate the T from the LGB. I would encourage them to re-read this passage from my post:

“Transsexuals who want to secede from the LGBT umbrella keep citing the fact that sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity. This may be true, but this point has nothing to do with the rationale behind why trans people were initially included in the umbrella - specifically, because LGBT individuals are all discriminated against for similar reasons (i.e., because, in one way or another, we challenge the assumption that sex, gender and sexuality should all be perfectly aligned). This is evident in the way that gays, lesbians and bisexuals are often targeted for discrimination for their gender nonconformity, and in the way that transsexuals are often targeted for discrimination because people fear that sleeping with us might “make them gay.” In other words, while sexual orientation and gender identity may be different things, homophobia and transphobia are very much intertwined.”

4) Jonah (posting on my blog) brought up how umbrellas (e.g., transgender) can lead people to appropriate other groups (e.g., trans people appropriating intersex identities and experiences). Here was my response: “This is a legitimate concern, and I feel that it stems mostly from people confusing identities with umbrellas. People who understand umbrellas realize that they are in an alliance with other marginalized groups, but that they have no right to speak on behalf of those groups. I know several intersex folks who also identify as transgender. But I do not assume that I can speak on their behalf simply because I also identify as transgender. Just because you identify a particular way, or are included in the same umbrella as someone else, does not give you the right to speak on their behalf.”

I would also add, the same is true for cis lesbian and gay folks who appropriate trans people’s identities and experiences. Being in an umbrella does not give one the right to appropriate other people’s identities or issues, and such instances should be challenged. Granted, this may happen quite often (e.g., G & L appropriation of T, trans folks appropriations of intersex), but it is not because of umbrellas per se, but because of a lack of understanding or respect for what umbrella alliances are really all about.

5) dentedbluemercedes (posting on my blog) said: “you make the point that even "transsexual" is an umbrella. This is true. But the wider an umbrella is cast, the greater the erasure and the sense that any one narrative becomes misrepresentative.” This sentiment was echoed in an anonymous comment (posting on my blog): “arent we all groups of one essentially? All marginalized peoples should with varying degrees help one another...being identified in any group lessens our unique individuality.”

Sometimes I refer to this as the Russian nested doll problem. Each of us is a unique individual with lots of issues that affect us personally (and also, lots of privileges that allow us to ignore other people’s problems). Each of us on our own is unable to make much of a dent in the system, so we ban together with other people to fix these problems - that is, we form umbrella groups. The smaller and more specific the umbrella group, the less in-fighting and the more focused the activism. This can be good. But there is drawback, in that the smaller the umbrella group, the less impact it will have on the world. Bigger umbrella groups have bigger impacts, but they also dilute out individual voices more, and tend to favor larger or more established subgroups over more marginalized subgroups. So which umbrellas should we choose?

Well, I don’t think this is an either/or situation. I personally think the answer is to work on multiple levels at once. Sometimes I write about, and focus my activism on, transsexual issues. Other times, trans woman-specific issues. Still other times bisexual issues, or queer issues, or women’s issues. And so on. This is what I advocated at the end of my piece - that there are numerous alliances that we can create and/or strengthen.

Some transsexuals may want to only focus their activism primarily on transsexual-specific issues. I think that is completely valid, and I encourage them to do so. But they should not discredit those of us who are working at the level of larger umbrellas (e.g., transgender or LGBT). And vice versa.

One more thing that was implicit in my piece, but I want to say more explicitly here: One potential benefit of larger umbrellas is that (when working functionally rather than dysfunctionally) they tend to be less elitist or exclusive than smaller ones. They force us to recognize and challenge obstacles that may not affect us personally, but which affect other folks under our umbrella. While I may be transsexual, I feel that it is important for me as an ally to recognize and challenge obstacles faced by crossdressers, or genderqueers, or intersex folks, or cis gays and lesbians, even if they are not my issues per se. And as someone who is in favor of social justice more generally, I think that it is important for me to also challenge racism, classism, ableism, etc., both within my own community as well as in society more generally.

6) Teagan (posting on the Transadvocate) said: “For what it's worth, I do believe that Serano and others desire hetero TS women in there to legitimize the movement with the public.”

I can’t speak for “others,” but I am comfortable with the fact that some hetero transsexuals do not identify as transgender or LGBT. I don’t think that transsexuals are some monolithic group that all share the same orientations or political views. I am comfortable stating publicly that some transsexuals are actively involved in transgender and LGBT alliances/umbrellas whereas others are not. In other words, I am not out to exploit/appropriate hetero-identified transsexuals.

A question: do hetero-identified transsexuals exploit/appropriate transgender/queer/LGBQ-identified transsexuals when they argue that all transsexuals want out of the transgender or LGBT umbrellas? It’s kinda sorta the same thing, isn’t it? That’s why I believe we should embrace the fact that “transsexuals” are not a monolithic group. We differ on this, and other, issues. Our differences/diversity is an asset, not a drawback.

7) Andrea (posting on the Transadvocate) said:

There's a serious issue being missed here: CONSENT. Women are individuals, not individual examples of a homogenous "identity group" called "women." We cannot consent for each other. You can't consent for anyone else but yourself, Julia. All a "Separatist" really is, is a woman who said "NO." NO MEANS NO. It is not the beginning of a discussion, it is the end. There is no debate to be had. The "Separatists" aren't preventing any woman from saying "YES," for herself, if she wants to. It is the "Inclusionists" with their grabby umbrella that are ignoring consent issues and trying to remove the ability to say "NO."

Amber (posting on the Transadvocate) then replied “Yes brilliant. I say no to being raped by the transgender umbrella. I say no to someone making knowledge of my sexuality the price of admission. I say no to gays and lesbians presuming t0 speak for me.”

So first, as a survivor of an attempted date rape myself, I must say that comparing pro-umbrella folks to rapists is beyond the pale. Having said that, the issue of consent is a legitimate point. For the record, I have never once advocated that all transsexuals *must* identify as transgender or LGBT. And I denounce anyone who insists that all transsexuals *must* identify as transgender or LGBT. At the same time, many anti-umbrella folks claim that transsexuals (uniformly) are not transgender, or that we are not LGBT, when many of us do identify these ways. So perhaps there is some non-consensuality on both sides of this debate?

Hopefully, my above discussions about the difference between umbrellas and identities, and my Russian nested doll analogy, will help clarify my perspective on this. I will not force any transsexual person to identify as transgender or LGBT. But at the same time, I believe that my identity as a transgender- and LGBT-identified transsexual woman should also be respected. And when I (and others) talk about transsexual participation in transgender and LGBT alliances/umbrellas, it should not be seen as me forcing my identities onto you, but rather as my belief that there are commonalities worthy of forming alliances there. Conversely, if you want to focus primarily on transsexual-specific issues, I should (and do) respect that.

I hate war metaphors, but here it goes: There are many fronts to every movement. You are focusing on one front (i.e., transsexual issues), whereas I and other transgender- or LGBT-identified transsexuals are focusing on other fronts. We are on the same "team," but tackling different issues. And when people exploit or appropriate transsexual identities, we should stand together to challenge that, whether they be LGBT, or transgender, or cis straight folks. But we should welcome legitimate (i.e., non-appropriating/exploitative) cissexual allies of any stripe.

8) Speaking of which, comments on my piece (and on this issue more generally) constantly talk about transgender and LGBQ appropriation of transsexuals, as though this were unique to transgender- and LGB-identified folks. This ignores the fact that there is a long history of cis straight-identified folks (whether they be media producers, novelists, photographers, psychiatrists/psychologists, academics, etc.) who have appropriated/exploited/misrepresented transsexuals over the years! To pin this solely on LGBT/transgender/gender theorist folks is both wildly incorrect, and potentially sexist on several levels (e.g., traditional sexism, heterosexism, monosexism, etc.)

9) I saw a couple commenters who actually said they didn’t feel that transsexuals needed to form alliances with anyone. I feel that those responses are naive, and I assume they were probably uttered by folks who have no experience doing grassroots activism of any sort. It is easy to be an “arm chair activist” who complains about alliances they dislike without having to do the heavy lifting required to change societal views about transsexuals and the various forms of sexism we face.

10) Of all the people who objected to my piece, none of them offered different alliance(s) that they would support over transgender or LGBT alliances. I just wanted to note that.

11) Thaniel (posting on my blog) said “it seems to me that there's also something else at work here. I believe that some transwomen bring a heap of unexamined male privilege w/them thru their transition, & this causes them to think they have the "right" to define "trans-ness" for everyone. Thus their intolerance for those of us who may have gone in a different direction (and who frankly don't care what *they* think.) And with such a binary, right/wrong world-view, there can be no interpretation of "transgender" other than "it's wrong."

I am very sensitive to when the “male privilege” card is played against trans women - it is often used to dismiss our perspectives (especially in cis feminist spaces). It also ignores the fact that trans women no longer experience male privilege in our day to day lives. Having said that, I do believe that Thaniel has a point here about privilege more generally. When I have met (in person) transsexuals who hold anti-umbrella views, they are almost always white, middle-class, able-bodied trans women (for the record, privileges that I also share). There is nothing inherently wrong with being a white, middle-class, able-bodied trans woman. However, this can mean that such women have never been personally exposed to activism or social justice issues until coming out as transsexual.

In activist and social justice circles, people often justifiably decry people who are “single-issue activists” - that is, people who are only concerned with the one issue that personally affects their lives, but ignore the issues faced by other marginalized groups (which they do not have to deal with because of their own privileges). I think that it is fine to focus your activism primarily on a specific issue that you are most passionate about. But it is not okay to use that as an excuse to ignore the issues that negatively impact other marginalized groups.

12) On the comment section of the Transadvocate, some disagreed with my opinion that someone can be a transsexual woman yet still have a penis, to which I responded: “objecting to the idea that 'woman and can still have a penis' is logically no different from objecting to the idea that 'woman and is not XX chromosomally' or 'woman and cannot bare children'. There are countless arbitrary lines one can draw in the sand to separate women from men (and many would also disenfranchise many cis women as well as trans women). We are women because we move through the world as women. Trans women face the same sexism that cis women face. We deal with similar expectations and obstacles. That is what makes us women. Not our biology or anatomy.”

13) In that comment thread, several people argued with my claim transsexual was also an umbrella, arguing instead that it was a “medical condition.” While the phrase “Harry Benjamin Syndrome” (HBS) was not stated explicitly, this seems to be the position they were taking. Personally, I believe that transsexuality is a natural (i.e., pan-cultural, trans-historical) phenomenon where some people understand themselves at a deep and profound level to be a member of the sex/gender other than the one they were assigned a birth. I don’t view it as an illness, pathology, disorder or syndrome, but rather as a part of human variation. Unfortunately, in a cissexist world, transsexuals often are required to be diagnosed as having some kind of “disorder/illness/syndrome” (whether mental or medical) in order to access the means to physically transition. HBS-identified folks support the “disorder/illness/syndrome” model, whereas I and other non-HBS-identified transsexuals do not.

I personally feel that the natural variation view that I hold is both more accurate and empowering than the HBS view of transsexuality as medical “disorder/illness/syndrome,” but I respect the fact that others may disagree. But what I do strongly object to is the way that HBS-type positions are often used to police the “real/fake,” “transsexual/transgender” hierarchies. I think that it is arrogant when a psychiatrist or psychologist feels entitled enough to state that they can single-handedly determine whether a person is transsexual or not, especially when that determination invalidates that person’s gender identity. When a transsexual claims that they are truly HBS, whereas other transsexuals are not (which typically invalidates the latter person's gender identity), it is the same sort of arrogance.

14) Some people disagreed with my claim that trans men are relatively accepted in contemporary queer women’s spaces. To be clear, I am not saying that trans men are universally accepted. But as someone who has been active in queer women’s spaces for a decade, I can tell you for sure that in almost every dyke/queer space I’ve been in, trans men have been more accepted than trans women. This isn’t just my observation - many others have noticed and written about this discrepancy as well. Perhaps there are small pockets of queer women’s spaces (e.g., in particular towns or cities) where trans women are more accepted than trans men, but if they exist, they are few and far between.

It was also pointed out that trans men are not accepted in gay male spaces. I agree, this is a problem. But trans women (pre- and post-transition) are not readily accepted there either. I often participate in queer spaces (i.e., where there is a mix of LGBTQ folks) - these tend to be more accepting of trans women than either gay or lesbian/dyke spaces, but there still seems to be a bias or preference toward trans men over trans women, and it seems to stem from a favoring of masculinity over femininity.

So I am not saying that trans men are always accepted whereas trans women are not. It is more complex than that. But I do believe that there is a discrepancy there and that it is fueled primarily by transmisogyny and anti-feminine sentiment. And the *only* reason that I brought it up here is in an attempt to explain why most anti-umbrella advocates are trans women rather than trans men.



A disclaimer, I am rushing this out there because I feel that the blogosphere demands my (relatively) immediate response. This response is not as well honed or thought-out compared to most things I write (where I go through several revised drafts). So please give me a little leeway if my particular word choice (or even grammar/spelling mistakes) bother you. I have written this in the spirit of explaining my views while simultaneously respecting other people’s views. I hope that it is taken in the same way.

Okay, so that is it for now. I am taking a couple day break from the internet after all this. Feel free to leave whatever comments you may have. I will read all comments sometime soon. Right now, I feel wiped-out responding-wise. But perhaps (after my break) I may reply to a handful of future comments, especially if they touch on issues I did not address here...

Best wishes, -julia

A “Transsexual Versus Transgender” Intervention*

2011-09-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

Over the last year or so, I have read a number of blog entries and Facebook rants about the so-called “transsexual versus transgender” issue. For those who are unaware of this debate, it stems from a subset of transsexuals who feel that the transsexual community is not served well by being included under the transgender umbrella (some even go so far as to insist that there is a mutually-exclusive dichotomy between transsexual and transgender people). Along similar lines, these transsexuals also argue that inclusion under the LGBT umbrella does a disservice to the transsexual community, as it conflates two very different issues (i.e., sexual orientation and gender identity), and emboldens many cissexual LGB folks to appropriate trans identities and experiences, and to claim to speak on our behalf.

I have purposefully tried to avoid entering into this debate, primarily because many (albeit certainly not all) of the umbrella critiques that I have read invoke horrible stereotypes, and sometimes even hate speech, to help bolster their case. I have seen blatantly homophobic and biphobic remarks made by some anti-umbrella advocates. One post I saw described bisexuals as sexual predators who fetishize and prey upon transsexuals - this comment draws on a long history of monosexist stereotypes of bisexuals as “sex crazed” and desiring “anything that moves,” and it deeply offended me as a bisexual trans woman.

Along the same lines, anti-umbrella advocates often self-describe themselves as “real transsexuals” and dismiss those who support the transgender and LGBT umbrellas as being posers and mere fetishists. Some even cite Ray Blanchard’s sexualizing and scientifically incorrect theory of autogynephilia to make their point. It is one thing to disagree with another person’s views about whether or not transsexuals should seek inclusion under the transgender and LGBT umbrellas. But when people stoop to the level of sexualizing those they disagree with, or dismissing them as “fakes,” then they are engaging in name calling rather than intellectual debate, and I want absolutely no part of it.

So like I said, I have mostly avoided this debate because of the name calling, disparaging stereotypes and nonconsensual sexualization that are sometimes associated with it. But recently, I read a post where someone referred to me as being firmly in the “transsexual” (rather than “transgender”) camp. This was the second time that I had seen such a claim, and frankly, it surprised me. Granted, in my book Whipping Girl, I argued that the transsexual experience is different from other transgender trajectories, and I also decried the manner in which some cissexual gays and lesbians appropriate transsexual identities. But I never once advocated that transsexuals should completely split off from the transgender or LGBT communities. Rather, my intention was constructive criticism - I hoped to make those alliances more aware and respectful of transsexual voices and perspectives.

So, for the record, I am in the pro-umbrella camp, even though I acknowledge that sometimes umbrella politics are messy and less than equitable. In other words, I believe that the pros of umbrella politics outweigh the cons. But, of course, that is my opinion, and others may disagree. If we are going to have a serious discussion about this issue (i.e., one that does not sink into the abyss of sexualization, stereotypes and name calling), then it seems to me that there are at least three major issues that need to be addressed, but which have been largely absent from the debate thus far.

1) Activism requires alliances.

Anyone who has ever been an activist for any social justice issue can tell you that minority groups, on their own, are never able to fully achieve the positive change they seek in the world without first forming alliances with those who do not share their experience. This becomes even more crucial when the minority group in question is especially small. Even the most liberal of estimates suggest that transsexuals make up about 0.2% of the population; more conservative estimates suggest that we are far rarer than that. Therefore, it is simply not possible for us to challenge deeply entrenched and institutionalized societal cissexism/transphobia without enlisting cissexual allies.

One of the most constructive ways to build alliances is through umbrella groups, where several marginalized groups that share similar concerns band together to work on their shared issues. After all, there is strength in numbers. Transgender activism came about as a way bring together transsexuals with other gender-variant groups (e.g., crossdressers, intersex people, two-spirit people, genderqueers, butch women, femme men, etc.), not because we are “all the same,” but in order to fight together against a mutual problem we share: The way in which our society marginalizes all people who do not conform to gender norms. While not perfect, that coalition has positively impacted most of our lives. One could even make the case that none of us would even be here openly having this debate in a public forum if it were not for the last two decades of transgender activism.

Many transsexuals also feel that the LGBT umbrella is another useful alliance. After all, it is the common assumption that a person’s sex, gender and sexuality should all nicely and neatly align that lies at the root of the oppression that all of us face. Transsexuals who want to secede from the LGBT umbrella keep citing the fact that sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity. This may be true, but this point has nothing to do with the rationale behind why trans people were initially included in the umbrella - specifically, because LGBT individuals are all discriminated against for similar reasons (i.e., because, in one way or another, we challenge the assumption that sex, gender and sexuality should all be perfectly aligned). This is evident in the way that gays, lesbians and bisexuals are often targeted for discrimination for their gender nonconformity, and in the way that transsexuals are often targeted for discrimination because people fear that sleeping with us might “make them gay.” In other words, while sexual orientation and gender identity may be different things, homophobia and transphobia are very much intertwined.

That is the argument for transsexual inclusion under the transgender and LGBT umbrellas. Those transsexuals who oppose those umbrellas must answer this: If we secede from those alliances, then who should we ally with? What new umbrella groups should we form in order to collectively fight the marginalization we face?

To date, I have only ever seen one opponent of the transgender and LGBT umbrellas suggest an alternative alliance that transsexuals should work toward. That person is Vivianne Namaste, an amazing Canadian trans activist, writer and theorist who is sadly underappreciated here in the States. In her book Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions and Imperialism, she claims that transsexuals have not been well served by the transgender and LGBT alliances, and she argues that transsexuals should instead forge “alliances with advocates for the homeless, activists working for the decriminalization of prostitution, and those who work on prison reform and/or abolition.”

While I find her argument to be very reasonable, I have a sneaking suspicion that most anti-umbrella advocates posting on the web these days would not embrace such an alliance. Indeed, an underlying sentiment in a lot of their posts seems to be that in order for transsexuals to be considered “normal” or “desirable,” we must dissociate ourselves from the undesirable sexual deviants and fetishists that supposedly reside within the transgender and LGBT umbrellas. So it is hard for me to envision these same anti-umbrella advocates whose posts I have read suddenly deciding to join forces with sex worker, prison reform and homeless activists.

It is never in the interest of the powers-that-be to simply give some minority group equal rights or to treat them as fully legitimate individuals. Anyone who has spent any time doing front-line activism can tell you that, in order to create positive change for transsexuals in this world, we need to band together with other disadvantaged groups to fight for our mutual interests. If anti-umbrella advocates want to be taken seriously, then they must move beyond simply decrying the transgender and LGBT alliances, and instead propose serious alternative alliances that are both realistic and which will help us achieve our collective goals. Other than Namaste (who, as far as I can tell, has not been involved in the recent umbrella debates on the web), I have yet to see any such alternative offered from anti-umbrella advocates.

2) Transsexual is an umbrella too

Most of the critiques that I have read arguing that transsexuals should abandon the transgender and LGBT umbrellas seem not to take into account the fact that transsexual is an umbrella too! We are a disparate group of individuals who share one thing in common: We all identify and live as members of the sex other than the one we were assigned at birth. Other than that, we differ in almost every way. Some of us are conservative while others of us are liberal. Some of us are middle- or upper-class while others of us are poor. Some of us are white while others of us are people of color. Some of us are straight while others of us are queer. Some of us are vanilla while others of us are kinky. Some of us are out as transsexual while others of us are stealth. Some of us are able to “pass” or “blend in” as cissexual while others of us are not. Some of us are very feminine, or very masculine, while others of us are less conventional in our gender expression. Like the population as a whole, transsexuals are highly diverse, and we should respect that diversity within our own community.

Some of the anti-umbrella posts that I have read presume that transsexuals are one monolithic group, and that we *all* want out of the transgender and LGBT umbrellas, when this is clearly not the case. A lot of us prefer to work toward making these umbrellas function better for transsexuals, rather than abandoning them entirely.

Without a doubt, the most disturbing aspect of this debate is that some anti-umbrella advocates try to erase this diversity in perspectives and experiences in our community by arrogantly claiming that they are “real” transsexuals, and that those who take a pro-umbrella position must be “fake” transsexuals. As I alluded to in the beginning of this post, this “real”/”fake” distinction is often policed via homophobic remarks and blatant sexualization, although it is often times policed in other ways.

The most devious way in which this “real”/”fake” distinction is enforced is through a redefining of the word “transgender.” Anti-umbrella advocates often use the term transgender, not as an umbrella term that includes transsexuals and other gender-variant people (i.e., the traditional definition of transgender over the last two decades), but rather as a pejorative to describe people who are merely “gender benders,” “drag queens,” “crossdressed men,” “fetishists” and/or “queers.” In other words, this use of the word transgender implies that transgender-identified transsexuals are “fakes” - people who pretend to be transsexual, but who are actually something else entirely. This wordplay allows anti-umbrella advocates to outright dismiss any pro-umbrella sentiments on the grounds that the person voicing that opinion is merely “a transgender” rather than a “real transsexual.”

About two years ago, on a trans-related email list, I was having an argument with another trans woman about some unrelated issue. And suddenly, out of the blue, she suggested that I was not a “real transsexual” because I still had a penis (she mentioned being on my website, so I presume that she figured this out from viewing the video of me performing my spoken word piece “Cocky”). Even though I have pretty thick skin, the accusation that I must not be a “real transsexual” really got to me. It stung bad. Like most of us, I have had to deal with so much shit in my life, first as an isolated trans child, then later as an outspoken transsexual adult. And to have someone, in one swift comment, try to take that all away from me, to invalidate my identity and life experiences, felt like a violation. In writing my response to her, I found myself wanting to mention that, after many years of not being able to afford it, I was finally scheduled to have SRS later that year. But I quickly decided against it for three reasons: 1) it is nobody’s fucking business what I do with my body!, 2) it would simply reinforce the fucked up notion that one has to live up to other people’s stupid criteria - whether it be surgery, or a diagnosis from a psychiatrist, or “passability,” or heterosexuality, or conventional femininity - in order to be deemed a “real transsexual,” and 3) it really wouldn’t have mattered what I said. She was trying to discredit me, to make the argument we were having about me, rather than the subject we were initially arguing about. She would not be satisfied with merely voicing her side of the argument - she also wanted to delegitimize me because I disagreed with her.

People who wish to discredit those they disagree with, rather than engage in honest and serious debate with them, always seem to play the “real” card. This is why right-wing conservatives claim that Obama is not a “real American,” or that liberals are not “real patriots.” It is why people will claim that hip-hop, or rock-and-roll, or any other music they do not like, is not “real music.” And it is why any person who does not conform to conventional assumptions about sex, gender and sexuality - whether they be transsexual, transgender, LGB or feminist - will inevitably be accused of not being a “real” woman or man.

Transsexuals are people. And like people more generally, we differ with regard to our sexualities, our gender expressions, and our perspectives and opinions. Therefore, we must stop referring to this debate about umbrellas as the “transsexual versus transgender” debate, as that is a misnomer. This is a debate between transsexuals who support transsexual inclusion within the transgender and LGBT umbrellas and those who do not. And anyone who attempts to play the “real transsexual” card should be summarily dismissed, as they are merely engaging in name calling rather than serious debate.

3) What this debate is really about

When I hear anti-umbrella advocates claim that transsexuals don’t want anything to do with the LGB community, it always strikes me as odd given the fact that so many transsexuals are LGB- and/or queer-identified.

Most modern studies examining the prevalence of LGB orientation claim that less that 5% of the (predominantly cissexual) population identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. The numbers can get higher—up to 15% of the population—when same-sex attraction or experiences (rather than identity) are measured. In contrast, in virtually every survey and research study I have seen (and I’ve seen quite a few), the percentage of LGB-identified transsexuals is somewhere between 30% to 60%. About ten years ago, I was on a large email list that focused on MTF transitioning, and in a survey there, about one-third of the transsexual women identified as heterosexual, one-third as bisexual, and one-third as lesbian.

There are always problems with measuring the prevalence of sexual orientation, so I would not claim to know exactly how many transsexuals are LGBQ-identified. But I think it’s safe to say that the percentage is way higher among transsexuals than for the greater cissexual population, and that it may even approach or surpass the 50% mark.

On top of this, there are many heterosexually-oriented transsexuals who identify as queer, often because they spent their formative pre-transition years within the lesbian/gay/queer communities. For instance, many trans men who are exclusively attracted to women (and therefore heterosexual in orientation) nevertheless identify as queer and continue to participate in queer communities, usually because they were a part of those communities pre-transition and/or because they are partnered to, or have a preference for, queer-identified women. There are also some heterosexually-oriented trans women who spent their pre-transition years in the gay male community, although this admittedly seems to occur far less often than trans men who spend their pre-transition years in lesbian/dyke communities.

This last point may shed some light onto the proverbial “elephant in the room” in this whole umbrella debate: It is almost exclusively a trans woman phenomenon. Now, I am not saying that there aren’t any trans men out there who want to secede from the LGBT umbrella, but frankly, every single anti-umbrella post that I have read has been penned by a trans woman. Now, there may be a number of factors that contribute to this disparity, but I suspect that a major reason is the fact that, in both gay male communities and lesbian/dyke communities, masculinity is celebrated and femininity is dismissed. This generally leads to greater acceptance of transsexual men (who express themselves and/or are perceived as masculine), whereas transsexual women (who express themselves and/or are perceived as feminine) are often ignored or shunned.**

Many transsexual women I have talked to who explored dating in gay male circles during their pre-transition days have told me that they received very little interest from gay men because they were seen as too feminine. In contrast, pre-transition transsexual men do not typically have such a problem dating within lesbian/dyke communities, where butch and trans masculine gender expression are often celebrated.

Here is a thought experiment: Imagine gay men en masse warmly welcoming and celebrating heterosexually-oriented post-transition transsexual women into their communities. Sounds quite farcical, doesn’t it? And yet, heterosexually-oriented post-transition transsexual men are very much welcomed and celebrated in many contemporary queer women’s communities.

Given all this, I think that it might be useful to reframe this debate. Arguing that LGBT folks are inherently anti-transsexual (and therefore, transsexuals should secede from that umbrella) is patently untrue. While some LGBT individuals may express anti-transsexual sentiments, other LGBT folks downright embrace certain transsexuals. Instead, a more accurate description is as follows: Negative attitudes toward trans female and trans feminine individuals runs rampant throughout much of the cissexual queer community. As a result, many heterosexually-oriented trans women never feel welcome in, nor do they ever associate themselves with, the queer community (whereas heterosexually-oriented trans men often do). And queer-identified trans women typically have to work hard to be seen as legitimate members of the queer community (whereas queer-identified trans men are often celebrated within those same queer circles).

This leads to one final point: As a trans woman who has had to fight tooth and nail to try to get the greater cis queer women’s community to acknowledge and embrace their trans sisters, the idea of removing transsexuals from the LGBT umbrella greatly concerns me. If it were to happen, I believe that it would severely undermine the modest gains that queer-identified trans women have made thus far. So we are left with a dilemma: Heterosexual trans women don’t feel like they are a part of the queer community, and so they understandably want to remove transsexuality from the LGBT umbrella. Yet, if such a move were to occur, it would have a strong negative impact on queer-identified trans women who still to this day struggle to be acknowledged, accepted and appreciated within LGBT circles.

Reconciling this debate

Unfortunately, these umbrella debates have created rifts (or exacerbated previously existing rifts) between heterosexual and queer-identified trans women, and between transsexual women and non-transsexual transgender people on the trans female/feminine spectrum. I think that there are a few things we can do to reconcile these debates and heal the rifts that currently exist within our communities.

First, we should respect the diversity of identities, sexualities and life histories that exist among those of us on the trans female/feminine spectrums. We should recognize that many transsexual women have been, or currently are, crossdressers, drag performers, androgynous, butch, or genderqueer-identified—such life experiences do not make a person any less transsexual. Furthermore, cissexual women vary in their sexualities and identities, so we should expect transsexual women to vary in these respects too. Heterosexual transsexuals should stop trying to convince the world that all transsexuals are straight and want out of the LGBT umbrella. Similarly, queer-identified transsexuals sometimes play up the idea that transsexuality is inherently subversive and super-duper-queer in order to gain acceptance within queer circles (I should know, as did quite a bit of that during the first two years after my transition)—this erases the life experiences of our straight-identified trans sisters.

Second, rather than pitting trans female/feminine communities against one another, we should all stand together to challenge our shared problem: trans-misogyny within the greater cissexual LGBT community.

Finally, we should recognize that umbrellas exist, not because all of its members share the same identity, but rather because its members are marginalized in similar/related ways by society, and have formed an alliance to challenge the mutual problems they face. I believe that transgender and LGBT are useful alliances in this regard, but they need not be the only ones. I am a big proponent of creating alliances between cis and trans women to challenge the traditional sexism/misogyny we mutually face. Many people (including myself) think that transsexuals should ally ourselves with intersex activists, disability activists, and fat activists to challenge the cultural belief that certain bodies are “better,” more “natural,” or more valid than others. And Namaste’s suggestion that transsexuals should ally with other groups who have been criminalized by society (e.g., sex worker, prison reform and homeless activists) is another potentially productive one.

If the goal is forwarding transsexual and/or trans women’s rights and perspectives, then we should focus our energies on creating more and stronger alliances, rather than tearing down existing ones.

-julia

*note: I called this piece an “intervention” as a shout-out to Vivianne Namaste, who often uses that phrase to describe her own writings and activism.

**to be clear, I am not claiming that all trans women are feminine, or all trans men are masculine. But people do tend to perceive trans women as being feminine, or attempting to be feminine (even when we are not), and vice versa for trans men.

on returning to blogging...

2011-09-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

Since I am now re-entering the so-called "blogosphere" with my new blog, I figured that it would be worthwhile to briefly mention why I took a hiatus from blogging in the first place, and what my hopes are for this new blog.

So from 2007 through 2009, I was a semi-regular blogger, mostly on my old LJ site, sometimes on the Trans Group Blog, and as an occasional guest poster on Feministing. Blogging is a wonderful medium for getting thoughts, ideas and essays out there quickly, which I definitely appreciated. Also, during that span, I was introduced to the work of countless amazing writers and activists blogging on other sites. So in many ways, my relatively brief foray into blogging was a rewarding experience.

However, there were also negative aspects to that experience as well. First, it quickly became clear to me that I am more of a writer than a blogger. To be clear, I am not insinuating that these are two mutually exclusive things - obviously, all bloggers are writers, and many writers have their own blogs. What I mean is that I mostly write for the page, and sometimes I go long stretches without keeping up with other blogs. As a result, sometimes when I would come out of my hermit-phase and post something, I would unwittingly step into the crossfire of a raging blogosphere controversy of some sort. On more than one occasion, I had others assume that I was somehow "taking sides" in some controversy, despite that I was oblivious to the fact that such a controversy even existed in the first place.

On one occasion, a blogger who I have huge respect for was upset that I posted about an issue that she had recently written extensively about, but I had not cited her. I didn't cite her simply because I was not keeping up with other people's blogs during the time-frame that she had posted on that topic, so I had never seen what she had written. We patched things up, and I added a link to her post. But it left me worried that my failure to keep up with other blogs might lead to future incidents where my actions (or inactions) might be misinterpreted as "dissing" another blogger.

Over time, I realized that the more regular bloggers in the feminist, queer, trans, and other social justice-related blogosphere(s) seem to be fairly rigorous about keeping up with everyone else's blog posts. I know that this helps to create a sense of community, where everybody is cross-posting each other’s posts and commenting on them. But it also creates the expectation that anyone who blogs on the aforementioned topics *should* be aware of all previous posts and controversies. This can lead to an "in group" phenomenon that leaves newbies and occasional bloggers such as myself fearful that we may inadvertently say something or do something that results in a flame war. I am all for keeping people accountable for what they have said/written. But it is also important to extend the benefit of doubt to those who may not be privy to previous discussions and debates.

But perhaps the main reason why I became burnt out on blogging is all the hate speech and ad hominem attacks that inevitably seem to break out during internet-based discussions (whether they be on blogs or old-school email lists). Like many of us who write about feminist, queer, trans and social justice politics, I have a lot of anger and emotion and hurt inside me that sometimes comes raging out when I hear someone make a problematic claim about gender, sexuality, or some other subject that is important to me. When I am writing for the page, generally all of that emotion (and sometimes outright venom) gets edited away over the course of several drafts. But the immediacy of the internet often results in back-and-forth name calling and flaming rather than serious, thoughtful discussion.

Anyway, I officially stopped blogging (with the exception of occasional personal posts and updates) in mid 2009, after one several week period when I had to deal with multiple ad homenim/name calling incidents. Now I've been called countless names in my life - many far worse than those accusations. But at the same time, why would I want to participate in a venue where others are going to stoop to such name calling? Why would I want to voice my thoughts about an issue if there is a decent chance that I will be flamed as a result?

Anyway, after a two year-long hiatus, I decided to come back. I came back because I have stuff that I want to say, and because some people out there might want to hear it. I am slowly but surely working on my next book, which won’t be out for some time. But in the interim, I might occasionally want to get some related (or unrelated) thoughts out into the universe. Plus, in addition to my typical writing about gender- and sexuality-related themes, I have had a few health-related issues arise in my life in recent years, and I feel the need to share my thoughts about those experiences. So I hope that this blog will be a venue for that writing as well.

I also came back to the "blogosphere" because there are a lot of other bloggers out there saying smart and interesting things, and I want to read what they have to say. So I have returned in the spirit of mutual communication and mutual understanding - to both speak and to listen. I came back for the thoughtful discussions and debate, not flame wars.

To try to facilitate a more sustainable atmosphere in my little corner of the internet, I want to put forward the following guidelines and disclaimers that I am hoping readers and commenters here will respect:

1) I occasionally read other people’s blogs, but not on a regular basis. Please do not assume that I am familiar with a previous blog discussion unless I directly cite it. And please don’t assume that I am taking a side in some blogosphere controversy unless, of course, I explicitly state such a position.

2) When I am aware of a previous blogosphere discussion on the same topic that I am posting about, I will certainly cite it. If I fail to cite such previous posts/threads/discussions, it is most likely because I am unaware of their existence. If this happens, I highly encourage you to include links to such previous posts/threads/discussions in the comments section.

3) My blog is currently set so that comments are unmoderated for the first 30 days. After that, they are moderated (meaning that they will not appear on the blog until I approve them). Because new posts are unmoderated, I ask that people be respectful of others, and not engage in flaming or name calling.

4) I will not tolerate any hate speech or ad hominem attacks on my blog, regardless of whether they are directed at me or others. So if you engage in such nonsense, I reserve the right to delete such posts.

5) I am a reasonable person and I very much welcome thoughtful disagreement. Sometimes I will disagree with dissenting views. Other times dissenting views will change my thoughts/opinions about a subject. So I encourage you to leave such views in the comments section provided that you follow guidelines #3 and #4.

6) While I am open to dissenting views more generally, I draw the line at comments that attempt to undermine my identity or lived experiences. So, in other words, if you want to “debate” whether I am a “real woman” or “real transsexual,” I will likely view such comments as beyond the pale and delete them.

7) I will try to read every comment that is left on my blog. However, due to limited time, and me sometimes taking “internet breaks” for personal or health-related reasons, I will not be able to reply to every comment. I apologize in advance.

8) I have come to recognize that there are some people out there who really don’t like me. At all. They are opposed to my entire worldview regarding gender, sexuality, feminism, trans and queer issues. They may even kinda sorta despise me as a person even though they have never met me personally. That’s fine, I guess that comes with the territory of being a “public figure.” If people want to express their dislike of me on internet forums, they have every right to do so (provided that they are not engaging in libel, of course). But for those of you who really don’t like me, here is a helpful hint that will make both our lives far more easy: Don’t post comments here. Seriously. I don’t post comments on religious-right blogs or anti-trans lesbian-separatist blogs, because I realize nothing good could come of it - for them or for me. I respectfully ask that you do the same.

Thanks for listening, -julia

I was not aware...

2011-08-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

...that August is apparently "Psoriasis Awareness Month" until just now. I am somewhat active on psoriasis message boards, and yet even I did not find out that this was our month to shine until August 26th! If I didn't hear about it until now, I highly doubt that the public at large has received the message...

Anyway, in the spirit of awareness: psoriasis is a chronic auto-immune type of condition that primarily affects the skin, although it can also affect other tissues (e.g., in psoriatic arthritis). I wrote a bit about my experiences with psoriasis last winter. I have since been doing much better. I began to write a long follow up post on that, but I haven't quite gotten around to finishing it. someday soon, perhaps...

anyway, now you are aware. Have a great day! -j.

Honey Money

2011-08-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

A friend passed this onto me:

"Catherine Hakim: charm school marm – interview"

This has got to be the funniest book review-slash-interview that I have ever read. It totally titilated my erotic capital... ; )

Good Friday

2011-08-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on LJ 4-21-11

So tomorrow is "Good Friday" - a name that totally confused me as a young (pre-recovering) Catholic child. Why is it good? Because Jesus died? If so, since when is being politically executed a good thing?

Or maybe it's good because he eventually comes back from the dead - if so, then shouldn't it be "bad Friday" and "good Sunday"?

Or maybe it's good because Jesus supposedly died for our sins? Well in world where that pope guy still insists that transsexuality and same-sex relationships are "sins", does that mean that I am forgiven? Or would I have had to be born back in the B.C. days to have been forgiven? Even if Jesus did die for *my* sins, is that something that I, as a moral human being, should be celebrating - political executions/martyrdoms that personally benefit me?

In any case, tomorrow represents an important anniversary for me. It was on Good Friday 22 years ago that I first presented as female in public!

I've already written about this on two separate occasions. I talked about it in a piece I wrote back around 2005-ish called "Cherry Picking" (which should be appearing in an anthology sometime later this year). Here's what I said about it there:

The first time that I ever went out in public dressed as a woman was when I was 21. I came home from college for Easter weekend while the rest of my family was away on a trip. I shaved off the silly looking beard I had grown over the semester. I put on my sister’s black cotton knit dress. It had long sleeves, so that no one could see my arm hair, and I wore opaque tights to hide my leg hair. I’m sure that I put way too much make-up on my face and way too much product in my hair, but nobody seemed to care because it was the eighties. I drove to a mall about an hour away from my parent’s house so that I wouldn’t run into anyone who knew me. As I approached the entrance, an older man held the door open for me and called me “sweetie”. I felt flattered and insulted at the same time, but mostly, I was just amazed to be getting away with this. After walking around the mall for about ten minutes, I realized that I was hungry and hadn’t eaten all morning. I drove to a Burger King for a shake and fries. The woman at the drive-thru window said, “Thank you ma’am,” as she handed me my change and receipt. I can’t begin to tell you how beautiful those three simple words sounded to me.

I also wrote about this meaningful moment in my life in song form - specifically a Bitesize song called "In the Know". For the occasion, I am temporarily making it available mp3-wise at this link:

http://www.juliaserano.com/av/Bitesize-In%20the%20Know.mp3

for those who are interested, here are the lyrics to that song:

as you drove through illinois/i was super paranoid/sneaking out of our garage/head to toe in camouflage/but no!/i’m never gonna let you know.../while you were pumping gasoline/i spent a day in quarantine/writing run-on paragraphs/in the bedroom aftermath/but no!/i’m never gonna let you know.../your toothpaste/your mouthwash/your hair brush/your dental floss/your wash cloth/your lotion/your saline solution/all of your stuff is staring back at me/it makes me feel guilty but i’m not gonna crack/but no!/i’m never gonna let you know...

As I have written elsewhere, my Catholic upbringing really fucked me over as a young child trying to make sense of my trans-ness. So it is somewhat satisfying to know that a crucial positive moment in my trans life occurred on a sacred Catholic holiday…

-julia

Skin

2011-08-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on LJ 12-19-10

Skin
December 2010

I.

In August 2006, a friend was taking photos of me for use on my website and for promotion and such. During the photo-shoot, she asked a series of seemingly random questions that were meant to keep me relax and acting natural while I was being photographed. One of those questions was, “What is your favorite part of your body?” It really struck me, because no one had ever asked me that question before. And, almost without hesitation, I answered: “My skin.”

Way back during my physical transition, among the plethora of bodily changes that were taking place, the change in my skin was most profound for me. While some trans folks focus on some of the more prominent or symbolic changes, I marveled at my skin – the change in texture and appearance, how my face blossomed into a mess of freckles. I remember waking up mornings during that time, and my hand would just so happen to be touching my arm, or my leg, or face, and it would just feel right. I suppose that it’s a cliché to say that trans folks finally feel “comfortable in our own skins” post-transition. Well for me, I experienced that phrase quite literally.

II.

Nowadays, when I look at the photos that were taken of me on that August day four years ago, I notice my skin and all those freckles, but mostly my attention is drawn toward a small red blemish on my right cheek. I remember having first noticed the blemish a month before that photo-shoot, during a hectic month in which my partner at the time and I were in the process of moving for the fifth time in seven years (that is a long story in and of itself). Anyway, at first I thought the blemish was a zit, but it didn’t go away. My bird Buddy, who spends much of her time perched on my shoulder, kept trying to pick at it. I kept telling myself that I should go to the doctor to have it checked out, but I was so busy packing and unpacking, and working hard to make my end-of-the-year book manuscript deadline, that I viewed the blemish as a relatively low priority.

That changed one September day, when I noticed a little blood vessel adjacent to the red blemish. As a biologist, I am aware that tumors often recruit blood vessels, so I immediately became concerned that it might actually be cancerous. Unfortunately, I was right. What followed was a year-long ordeal during which I had a 3 square-centimeter chunk of my cheek removed, as well as two plastic surgeries to try to fix the hole that was left behind. (I described this in slightly more detail in a previous post)

These days, when I look at pictures from that August, 2006 photo-shoot, I can’t help but notice how my face has changed since then. First, I have a significant scar on my right cheek from those cancer-related surgeries. Some people tell me that you can hardly notice it. But I’ve also had people ask me outright “How did you get that scar on your face?” So I have to believe that it is fairly obvious. Even if others overlook it, it sure is noticeable to me.

And when I compare the face that appears in those old photos to the one starring back at me in the mirror now, it is striking how less freckly I am these days. This is an indirect effect of having had skin cancer, as in the years that have followed I have religiously worn sunscreen and large brimmed hats in order to reduce my exposure to the sun. The less sun exposure, the less freckles. I really liked my freckles, so it’s been kind of sad to no longer have as many.

But more than sadness, when I look back on pictures from that photo-shoot, I am filled with a profound sense of irony. On that August day when I declared that my skin was my favorite part of my body, little did I know that some of my skin cells were revolting against me, and that I would need to lose a big chunk of mostly healthy skin tissue in order to save the rest of my body from those renegade skin cells.

III.

I have been thinking quite a lot about my skin over the last two months. In fact, it has, once again, become my primary preoccupation. I have recently been diagnosed as having psoriasis, which is a chronic auto-immune condition that affects the skin. It is one of those conditions that no one fully understands, but many researchers believe that it occurs when the body mistakes healthy skin for wounded skin. Basically, what happens is that immune cells move into the epidermis and secrete factors that both cause inflammation and signal to the surrounding tissue to make new skin cells. Then, when these new skin cells arrive at the surface of the skin (where they are not actually needed), they die, resulting in what are called “plaques,” which appear at the skin’s surface. In addition to these plaques, the skin becomes very thick, red, inflamed and incredibly itchy.

Anyway, like I said, it is a chronic, life-long condition that, like many auto-immune conditions, may be dormant for periods, and then suddenly become more intense for one reason or another, often in response to stress or environmental factors. Although I was unaware of it at the time, in retrospect, I believe that I had a very mild flair-up of psoriasis during my twenties, primarily on my scalp (which is one of the more common places for it to develop) and my ears. At the time, I thought it was just a dandruff problem (a common presumption), and I battled it with dandruff shampoos. Around the age of thirty, it just seemed to go away, and I haven’t thought much about it since.

A few months ago, out of the blue, it started coming back. In September, I had my biannual full-body skin exam with my dermatologist. Normally, the focus of the exam is on potential skin cancer recurrences - luckily there were none. But this time, she found that the skin on my scalp was irritated. It was fairly mild at that point, so she suspected that it was just a case of dermatitus, which tends to be temporary and is usually less serious.

Over the next two months however, it only got worse. Upon close inspection, it became obvious that my entire scalp was extremely red and I could see plaques all over. I switched over to dandruff shampoos and conditioners, which had worked for me in the past, but they did not help at all. Eventually it became unbearable - my scalp itched incessantly and was a constant source of pain. So I went back to my dermatologist, and she said it was definitely psoriasis.

For the last month or so, I’ve been on a rigorous treatment regime, involving topical medications, medicated shampoos, and a once a week soaking-my-head-in-oil treatment to facilitate plaque removal. My scalp psoriasis has definitely subsided a bit, but has certainly not gone away. In addition, I have experienced a couple small outbreaks on other parts of my body, specifically on my arms and torso. The fact that it has started spreading to other parts of my body has really worried me, as it implies that my condition is getting worse rather than better. In people who have more severe cases, psoriasis can cover large swaths of the body. My grandmother had psoriasis, and it covered much of her legs. (Other relatives on her side of the family had it as well; it tends to run in families.) I am nowhere near that point, but the fear that my psoriasis may be becoming more widespread and severe is a constant source of concern. Some mornings I wake up and see lots of tiny, red, dry patches on my arms, which I have come to recognize as the first signs of flair ups. If I ignore them, they get larger and itchier. I can usually prevent this from happening by dousing them in lotion 4-5 times a day. Occasionally a patch or two will continue to grow, in which case I need to treat it with medication.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for psoriasis, only management of the condition. In addition to the treatments I am undertaking, I have also tried to increase my vitamin D levels and to get more sun. Apparently, the ultraviolet radiation in sunlight can signal the skin cells to stop dividing aberrantly. The irony has not been lost on me: After hiding from the sun for the last four years for fear of another incident of skin cancer, I am now actively seeking out sunlight (albeit in moderation). This has been a little difficult to achieve, as here in the Bay Area we tend to have very overcast and rainy winters. But at least we don’t have dry winters like much of the country, as this can really exacerbate the condition. Many people experience their biggest psoriasis flair ups in the winter, both because of the dryness and the sharp reduction in sunlight.

My dermatologist says that the treatments I am on, while topical, are quite strong. (Actually, I am alternating between a strong medicine and a more mild medicine every two weeks). If the topical medications fail to keep the condition in check, the fallback position (from a medical perspective) would be going on immunosuppressants. Apparently, they significantly ease psoriasis symptoms, but they have the considerable drawback of...well, being immunosuppressants. Needless to say, that is a path that I would only ever consider if absolutely necessary.

Anyway, I find myself dealing with this new development in my life on two different levels. First, there is my immediate having to deal with the changes in my body and my daily routine. Between the various treatments, making a point of getting some sun, constantly surveying my body and applying lotion, and so forth, a significant chunk of each day has become dedicated to dealing with psoriasis. Furthermore, as with most auto-immune conditions, stress is thought to exacerbate psoriasis, so I have been making a point of not pushing myself too much, and of getting a minimum of 8 hours of sleep per night. This has really cut into my writing time (which has traditionally taken place early in the mornings before I head off for my day job) and other projects and chores have fallen by the wayside as well. I am hoping that this is a temporary phase, and that I will be able to resume my old schedule when/if my psoriasis goes back into remission. But of course, there are no guarantees that this will happen.

Psoriasis has also affected my quality of life in other ways, the most obvious of which is how uncomfortable the condition is. While the medication has helped a lot, my scalp is still red and inflamed and itchy a lot of the time. I liken my situation to having a minor cold: Because it is not too severe, you can go into work and get stuff done, but at the same time, you feel yucky all the time, and you are worried about exerting yourself too much for fear of the condition getting worse. It is a constant, low-level uncomfortability and cause for concern in my life; it is frustrating, but manageable.

The fact that my psoriasis is concentrated on my scalp has also touched a bit on my trans issues, specifically regarding my hair. First off, when I do my once a week oil treatment to remove plaques, I always lose lots and lots of hair - more hair that I have ever lost at one time in my life. This is most likely a temporary situation: as the plaques disappear they often take hair with them, but they usually do not affect that ability of the hair follicles to make new hair (which is what happens in actual baldness). The hair loss is probably not noticeable to anyone but me, but as a trans woman who was starting to experience male pattern baldness in the couple years just prior to my transition, the whole episode has been somewhat triggering.

In addition, I am only suppose to shampoo 2-3 times a week now, and some of the topical treatments have left my hair pretty yucky and unmanageable. Since my hair is long, I can just put it in a ponytail, which is no big deal. But the main problem is my bangs. I have a really high hairline (as a result of my previously mentioned flirtation with male pattern baldness) that is normally not very visible because of my bangs. But when my bangs don’t behave, my hairline becomes fairly obvious. In the last two weeks, I’ve had a couple instances where it seemed like strangers were either misgendering me or trying to figure out my gender. Granted, I’ve had many incidents like these in my life thus far (albeit mostly before and during my transition), and I can handle them just fine. But nevertheless, it is still a frustrating thing to have to deal with.

Anyway, those are the short-term issues that are foremost in my mind. Underneath all that, I am also trying to come to terms with the admittedly more nebulous long-term ramifications of having psoriasis. Like I said, my immediate goal is to work toward remission, but this may not be achievable. Many people deal with their psoriasis symptoms for decades without respite. And many times symptoms only get worse with time, not better. According to one paper that I read, the condition eventually becomes debilitating in 25% of people who have psoriasis. This may be due to the severity of the skin condition, or to the fact that some people who have psoriasis additionally develop psoriatic arthritis over time.

So while I am cautiously optimistic about my psoriasis going back into remission, I am also trying to come to terms with the fact that this is a chronic incurable condition that could potentially (although not necessarily) become debilitating at some point. To be honest, this was difficult to deal with at first. I just came out of a fairly traumatic last few years, and I was really hoping to have a relatively uneventful year (or two or three) with no significant obstacles or losses in my life to deal with. So when I first learned that I had this condition, I initially experienced flashes of anger and sadness.

But over time, this news has started to settle into my psyche. It has become just another part of who I am. I survived growing up trans in a transphobic world. I survived skin cancer. And I will survive psoriasis. As with all of those previous obstacles, I am working hard to control the few variables that I can control, and to let go of everything that is beyond my control. And I am trying to focus on all the things in my life that I am grateful for, rather than dwelling on the negative. Back when I was an isolated pre-teen and teen coming to terms with the fact that I was trans, I spent several years stuck on the question “why me?” I eventually realized that that was a completely pointless, unanswerable question, one that simply consumed my consciousness and prevented me from moving forward with my life. I soon learned that the more relevant and productive question to ask is: “So what do I do now?”

IV.

Back when I had skin cancer, I couldn’t shake the feeling that those cancer cells were consuming me, like a parasite or plague. At one point, I completely disavowed my right cheek - I wouldn’t even touch it - because I knew that the cancerous cells that had taken over there were no longer a part of me. They were my enemy, intent on destroying me, and I desperately wanted them to be gone from my body.

A friend recently asked me if that’s how psoriasis feels. Do I feel as though my body is being consumed by psoriasis? Do I find myself disavowing my psoriatic skin lesions? My answer to that is an unequivocal “no.” With skin cancer, a small cluster of out-of-control skin cells were growing without regard to the health and well being of the rest of my body. Psoriasis is sort of the reverse situation: it is my immune system that is attacking my otherwise healthy skin tissue. In a way, it feels as though my body is betraying my skin, sending out immune signals to sabotage it. Rather than disavowing my skin, I feel really bad for my skin, and I want to make it better. And I desperately wish that I could convince my immune system to simply leave my skin alone.

In a way, all these thoughts are rather silly. My brain, and my skin, and my immune system, and the rest of my body, are all connected. We are all me. It is pointless to anthropomorphize my individual body parts and to pit them against one another. Just as it is pointless to declare that one part of my body is my favorite, when in reality, I need all of the individual parts to work together in order to exist.

Four years ago, I declared that my skin was my favorite part of my body. In the intervening years, the two major unexpected health issues that I have had to deal with have both involved my skin. On the surface, this might seem ironic. But I no longer see it that way. The older I get, the more that I find myself coming to terms with the fact that I am one body - a body that is both strong and susceptible; a body that is healthy and fully functioning in some ways, yet vulnerable and less functional in others; a body that I take for granted in many aspects, but which occasionally bestows me with obstacles, difficulties and challenges. I love my body, and at the same time, sometimes I am extremely frustrated by it. This might seem “contradictory” or “ironic” to some people. But I am becoming increasingly aware that having these mixed feelings is simply apart of what it means to be living.

on having fallen off the face of the earth...

2011-08-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Originally posted 1-4-10

This is not only my first post of 2010, but it is my first post more generally in quite some time. In my last post (way back in October), I made this vague comment to explain my lack of posting through the Fall of 2009:

“i've had four major life changes/upturnings (some good, some not so good, some a little of both) that have dominated my thoughts and time over the last two months.”

Since the start of new year is traditionally a time for recapping the previous year’s events, I thought it appropriate to be a little more explicit about some of the things that have been going on with me during the last half of 2009.

Of the “four major life changes” I was referring to, the least immediate one has been related to my day job. I found out a while back that the grant that my PI (aka., my boss) uses to pay me is not being renewed. Funding doesn’t officially run out until August 2010, so it is a bit premature to worry too much about it just yet. Plus, my PI is applying for new grants, so it may turn out that I keep my current job. But, especially given the suckiness of the economy/job market lately, this lack of stability has been generating some low-level stress in my life over the last year.

On top of that, in September through October, I became swamped by two very time- and energy-consuming matters. The first was my divorce. Dani (who is now going by the name Lily (and no, the name change is not gender-related!)) and I separated way back in mid-2008, but we didn’t take care of all of the legal stuff until the second half of this year. Things are very amicable between us, and we have developed a solid friendship post-marriage, so we didn’t have to contend with any of the drama/fighting people usually associate with divorce. And I had done most of the grieving over the end of our relationship back when we originally separated, so the divorce itself was not the intensely emotional experience it might have been if we had done it last year. However, despite occurring under relatively good circumstances, the divorce was incredibly draining. For those who have not been through a divorce before, I can’t even begin to tell you how much paperwork is involved. Form after form, each having to be filed in a specific order, many of them also having to be served on the other person. So even though we were on good terms and in agreement on how we would split everything up, it still took many months of seemingly ceaseless paper-filing to get through it all. If getting married was even half as bureaucratically complicated as divorce is...well, let’s just say there would be way less married people.

The other logistical issue that I was dealing with last Fall was getting all of my ducks in a row for my December visit to Montreal. And yes, I was going to Montreal to do the thing that trans women often do when they go to Montreal, if you get the nub of my gist. I already had my two letters at this point, but I still had to undergo a series of blood/medical tests, fill out lots of paperwork, and so forth. Somewhat surprisingly, obtaining SRS did not involve nearly as much paperwork as obtaining a divorce. But the fact that I was dealing with both issues simultaneously was really exhausting.

Once everything was finally arranged, I spent the last two weeks of November frantically preparing for being away from home for two weeks, and ensuring that everything in my apartment was set up in such a way as to make things easy for me to get around and take care of myself during an additional month and a half of healing.

I should mention at this point that I have very mixed feelings about publicly writing about my SRS. On the one hand, it is this really big thing that has taken place in my life, and its something that I’ve wanted for a long time, but could not afford until now. And like many writers, I have that compulsion (for better or worse) to write about my experiences—its how I make sense of my life, and in some cases, it’s how I exorcise my demons. So it makes sense that I would want to write about an experience as important as this. But on the other hand, I have long railed against two assumptions that constantly plague trans folks: 1) that it is somehow incumbent upon us to constantly reveal our genital status to anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat, and 2) that one is not a “real” transsexual or a “real” woman/man unless one has SRS. So I do have some concerns that publicly discussing my SRS here might inadvertently play into these presumptions.

So, for the record, I am discussing my SRS here, not because it’s my “job” as a trans person to keep the world up to date on my genital status, but because (as a writer) I have simply chosen to write about this recent event in my life. Furthermore, I chose to undergo SRS because of a personal understanding of how my body should be, not because of other people’s fucked up expectations. I respect the fact that other trans people may pursue SRS for reasons that are somewhat different from my own, and still others may choose not to pursue it at all. These are personal decisions, and each is equally valid. I have lived the last 8 years of my life as a woman who just so happened to have a penis. I am no more of a woman now than I was then. And I strongly believe that there are few things more inherently anti-trans than the notion that all trans people must pursue SRS (or any other procedure for that matter) in order to be considered a “real” or “bona fide” transsexual/woman/man/etc.

<<!-- end disclaimer...>>

Anyway, my surgery took place in early December, and I’ve been home for about two weeks now. The recovery process is long and slow, but everything has gone well thus far. I have been keeping busy with lots of DVDs, dilations, and occasional visits from friends. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to write or to get online as much as I had hoped, as it’s hard to use your laptop when your lap is on the mend...

One would think that having SRS would be the biggest recent news in my life, but that’s not actually the case. Its significance has been overshadowed by the “fourth major life change.” My Mom passed away back in November. She had a myriad of health problems over the last year, the main one being cancer of the mouth. She went into the hospital for a couple weeks in late October due to a radiation/chemo-related infection, but she never fully recovered from that. I flew in when it became clear that the end was near, and I got to spend her last few days with her, so I suppose I did have some “closure,” for what that’s worth. I grieved a lot the first few weeks after it happened, but then suddenly my SRS was upon me, so I’ve been trying to be positive and to focus on getting better for now, rather than dwelling on her death. But it’s been hard...

Anyway, I didn't want to end on a down note. The way that I look at it, 2009 was a really sucky year for the most part. But on the bright side, it’s over now. I miss my Mom, and that feeling won’t go away any time soon (or perhaps ever), but at least her suffering is over. Both the divorce & my SRS have happened, so now I can focus on my healing and on making 2010 an interesting, fun & productive year...

Obligatory new years resolution(s): To be healthy and to focus in earnest on the next book.

wow, the rest of the world really is as dumb as it seems...

2011-08-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on LJ 10-27-09

ok, so i have not been posting much. nor have i been writing much more generally. i've had four major life changes/upturnings (some good, some not so good, some a little of both) that have dominated my thoughts and time over the last two months. i will probably write about some of them later, but in the meantime i've been mostly being kinda hermit-ish, taking care of myself, and so on...

one of my big escapes in the midst of all this has been watching the MLB (aka, baseball) playoffs. so i am not a big sports-geek at all, but i have a weak spot for baseball. when i was a young kid (aka, elementary school) i dreamed of being a major league baseball player. it was also my favorite sport to play, although i was not especially good at it. (although, being the smallest boy in my league, i also had the smallest strike zone. since i wasn't a great hitter, my little league coaches used to encourage me to get walks. i got to be pretty good at working the count. back when i played (late 70s, early 80s) nobody paid any attention to On Base Percentage - if they did, i might have been an all-star..., but i digress...).

anyway, i hadn't followed baseball regularly for years until last year, when the Phillies (aka, of Philadelphia, where I grew up), made the playoffs and went onto win the World Series. the team has also been great this year too. i only got to see them play (on TV) about 5 times during the regular season, being that i am on the West Coast now. But since they've made the playoffs again, I've been following them regualrly. they have provided excellent escapism for me. escapism from my work, which has been more hectic than usual. and escapism from all of the trans/gender/activism/writing i do. while i enjoy the trans/gender/activism/writing i do, the "source material" i work with is often really troubling (e.g., people writing fucked up things about trans folks, media depictions mocking gender-nonconformity, and so on). so it's good to take breaks from it from time and time...

But the New York Post has ruined that for me today. The day before the World Series, they ran this cover. It is Shane Victorino's (a Phillies player) upper half photoshop'd onto a short-skirted cheer-leader's lower half. the caption says "the Frillies are coming to town!"

am i surprised? no, not really.

is it trans-misogynistic? duh.

is my annoyance compounded by the fact that pro-Philly folks relentlessly point out that it's a photoshop job (aka, that Shane does not sport ladies wear)? you better believe it!

i just want to escape. where does a baseball-lovin' trans lady turn these days in order to achieve transmisogyny-free escapism?

sigh...

-julia

so I was assaulted last night...

2011-08-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on LJ 9-6-09

so I was assaulted last night. i’m ok, but it was traumatic nonetheless.

after having gone out to dinner with friends, I walking home down 14th St, when I see a group of four people: two men, two women. They seemed youngish (early 20s?) and boisterous. There are a lot of bars in my neighborhood, so I assumed they were just in party-mode. I was on the far right-side of the sidewalk (to let them pass), and just as they were about to move past me, one of the women stepped right in front of me and clocked me (aka, purposefully punched me) right on the bridge of my nose and my glasses fell off. as she did it, she said “bitch!”

it was completely unprovoked: I hadn’t done anything, and there was no sign that she was going to take a shot at me until it happened. I don’t think I was targeted for any reason. I just think that she was wasted and did something random and stupid and impulsive. The two guys she was with laughed, as if they were taken completely by surprise, and were amused at how random and stupid and impulsive what she did was.

As soon as it happened, everything seemed like a dream, probably because my fight-or-flight system kicked in. My first impulse was to turn around and punch her back. I didn’t strike her hard (as she was walking away from me), but I made contact on her back. It was pure instinct. They all turned around. They were all bigger than me, and as rational thought kicked in again, I realized that nothing good could come from this. Plus, as it happened, I yelled “fuck you!” in the deepest, loudest, boom-iest, rage-iest voice I could muster (aka, it was a distinctively testosterone-influenced vocal cord moment). I am not sure what they made of it, but I figured that if they did suddenly became aware that I was trans, it would only throw more fuel onto the fire. so, with no other viable alternatives, I shouted one last profanity at her and started walking away. As I did, I heard her step on my glasses (on purpose, I assume). Because everything was adrenaline-rush dreamy-like, I didn’t think much about it at first - i think I assumed it was just my sunglasses. But then everything was blurry and I realized that “duh,” it was nighttime, and I had wore my glasses rather than contacts that eve. fuck...

I feel lucky that it wasn’t any worse than it was. My nose is black-and-blue and scraped up, but no blood, nothing broken, nothing stolen. Just a pair of broken glasses. oh yeah, and almost forgot, a little touch of post-traumatic stress disorder.

I feel like I shouldn’t talk about my emotional reaction to this, like its taboo. When something frightening/awful happens to us, we’re suppose to simply assure everyone we’re doing ok. “No worries, I’m fine, thanks for asking.” I am mostly fine, but not entirely. I feel really really really really really angry on the inside. It sometimes comes to the surface unexpectedly. I yelled at someone on BART today, and at someone else at Trader Joe’s. They did mildly annoying things, but I yelled like they had fucking crossed me.

There’s a homeless guy who is always on my block. I have to pass by him almost every day. He is clearly not mentally balanced. Some days he’s fine. Other days he’s wandering around in traffic yelling at cars. On his bad days, he often tries to fuck with me. A lot of times he will purposefully walk in front of me, to block me from walking around him. He’s also tried to fondle me twice, and sometimes he mumbles “bitch” or “cunt” as I walk by. But he was fine today. He nicely asked for change as I walked by. And I can’t tell you how hard it was for me to walk by him today with out yelling at him or kicking him or spitting on him or something. I was just filled with rage, and I wanted to take it out on him. It wasn’t his fault - I mean, he wasn’t the one who clocked me last night. But I am just so full of rage.

Most of my rage is directed at the woman who clocked me last night. I’ve had about 200 flashbacks of the incident today. It sounds weird to say that, like it’s too straight out of a psychology 101 textbook to actually be a real thing, but it’s true. I keep re-imagining, in a highly vivid way, the events as they unfolded last night. I keep imagining her take that step in front of me, and her arm going up to clock me. And then I mentally intervene. I imagine grabbing her arm and twisting it back behind her as she falls to the ground. Or I imagine striking her first, preemptively. I imagine her writhing in pain. I want her to feel pain.

Granted, this is not the rational, intellectual part of my brain speaking. That part of me actually feels sorry for her, for the fact that she and her friends think that random acts of violence against people are funny. But the rest of me - the physiological, emotional me - wants to beat her fucking brains in.

I know from past traumas that the rage I feel now will pass with time. But there is one lesson that I will never forget, and it has to do with gender stereotyping. I will never ever ever again stereotype women as not being violent...

-julia

p.s., the picture above (of me with the bandage on my face) is not from today - it's from when I had a big chunk of my cheek removed due to skin cancer 3 years ago. But somehow, it seemed appropriate. Cancer, like being assaulted, truly sucks...

Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue

2011-08-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on LJ 6-3-09

Happy Pride month everyone!

I just wanted to let everyone know about a 2009 National Queer Arts Festival show I will be participating in this month. It is called Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue - it is a spoken word event that I have co-curated with Gina de Vries (and featuring an awesome cast!) on a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area on June 17th, I highly encourage you to come out for it! All the details and a description of the show are below. Please be sure to order advance tickets online, as the event may sell out...

The National Queer Arts Festival Presents:
Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue
http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/GirlTalk.html
Curated by Gina de Vries & Julia Serano
Wednesday, June 17th
LGBT Center - Ceremonial Room
1800 Market Street, San Francisco
7:30pm
Tickets: $12-$20
Buy Tickets on-line!!: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/66001

Featuring the lovely & fabulous!:
Ryka Aoki de la Cruz
Tina D’Elia
Gina de Vries
Dorian Katz
Nomy Lamm
Julia Serano
Rose Sims (aka Little Light)
Lauren Steely

Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day -- from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. Girl Talk is a spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

*********

note added on 6-20-09 (i.e., after the show):
The show was amazing! For those who were not able to make it, you can listen to an mp3 of the show, which (for the foreseeable future) will be available here:
http://www.juliaserano.com/av/6_17_09-GirlTalk09.mp3

here are the times for those interested:

0:00:00 Pam's introduction
0:03:16 Gina
0:17:39 Ryka
0:32:26 Tina
0:42:26 Lauren
1:06:23 Nomy
1:19:23 Rose
1:33:09 Dorian
1:46:17 Julia