(no subject)

[rozk]

As people will have noticed, the last few days of the film festival have for all practical purposes been a min-trans film festival - I really don't care too much whether we get our name in the festival title as long as we get this much space, though probably it is only our name in the title that will guarantee it. There is one trans film that showed earlier - which I am going to have to try and catch - but it has been the last few days which meant that the FtM London crowd and the TransLondon crowd were generally around and throwing parties and being fabulous.

One interesting aspect of all this was talking to Fay, who always used to be one of the voices of moderation but whom middle age has turned into a bitter radical; I probably haven't talked to Fay as much as I did over the last few days since the 80s when we had adjacent appointments for electrolysis for some six months or so. Fay was quite involved in various early campaigning groups like the unfortunately named Self Help Action For Transexuals which is one of the reasons I dropped out of touch with her - other elements in the same group disapproved so much of me for being a dyke that they would not work with me when I was acting as conduit for briefings from the Department of Health. All of which turns out to have been entirely unfair because Fay knew nothing of this until I just told her.

(My former colleagues there were prepared to trust me as go-between and did not want to do off-the-record briefings about threats to trans services under the Tories with people that they did not actually know. When that avenue closed, I had to do some propagandizing all of my own which is a story for another time.)

So anyway, Fay has had a reasonable success in her career as conjuror but never as much as her talent deserves, because no-one in that part of showbiz has ever got past her being trans. There is a glass ceiling, and a pink ceiling, and a ceiling which one might as well call the sequin ceiling. Out trans people are not allowed to succeed too much - I never got to be Chair of Liberty and will probably never get to be quite as famous as I might like. I do somehow feel that some of this is the result of bigotry and some of it is just the human conditon.

Fay was echoing my comments about the young transfolk we know and the way their slightly easier transition has made for slightly less passion. It is significant that one of the most impressively passionate people in the thirty-something cohort is Calpernia who has undergone a level of tragedy in her life that I for one find hard to imagine. It was odd, though, listening to Fay and feeling that I was the laid-back unangry one because that is not how it has been...

One of the major themes in the discussion was the responsibility we have, or not, to the chunk of the trans community who have continued to make the choice to live in deep stealth. I tend to take the view that, if you don't contribute to the community, and have the unconditional support of that community both for as long as your choices work for you, and when they stop doing so, then what you don't get is to complain. And solidarity with stealth transfolk should not take the form of second-guessing what they might think about things and letting that construct significantly affect what one might otherwise want to do. This applies in particular when the issue might be what art we create or promote as out trans people - self-censorship is never a good idea and self-censorship because of concern about people who are self-silenced is an even worse one.

The other thing we have to avoid is self-censoring because of what people outside the community might say. I remember when those of us that are not straight were told to keep shut the frakk up lest the gatekeepers or gutter press freak out; I remember when some people in the community were keen enough to get marriage rights for themselves that they would not associate themselves with the demand for civil partnerships for the rest of us. It is a matter of real concern that eg the Dutch authorities are trying to impose sterilization as a pre-condition for gender recognition certificates, as are the Swedes. Let us be clear, though, this is a matter of simple bigotry and nothing to do with eg Tom Beattie and the other transmen who have quietly born children over the last decade or so - no-one in New Labour knew about this when a similar proposal was made back in Parliamentary Forum days and yet they proposed it anyway. (You may be sure that, when Steve Whittle and I drafted a response, we did not tell them what we already knew about and instead talked of the history of eugenic sterilization as a road down which they should not go - but that was simple pragmatism. And good card-playing.)

It was interesting listening to Calpernia say how odd she felt being in the heterosexual minority in trans company, interesting because she was being honest, and she was also talking about something real. And yet she was talking about something that is pretty much new - old folks like me and Kristienne were, in our day, the only transdykes we knew. Somehow in the last few years, things have changed.

I could go on talking about the issues raised in the panel until dawn, but I need to sleep - I would welcome some serious discussion here.

Comments

[darkphoenixrisn.livejournal.com]

It is a matter of real concern that eg the Dutch authorities are trying to impose sterilization as a pre-condition for gender recognition certificates, as are the Swedes.

I hadn't heard about that until now. Scary.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Do you have any references for that? Not that it would surprise me much with the conservative turn my country has taken in the past five years...

[odelenu.livejournal.com]

A long time ago, I was in a all night sleezy cafe somewhere in central London. I sat with Fay along with another dyke and a raging queen. We were met with nasty stares, comments etc, the usual fare for a very drunk crowd the wee hours of a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Within minutes she was doing tricks, making salt disappear out of salt shakers, hankies disappear and reappear and other light cafe tricks. The whole place was enthralled. She received a standing ovation. I always knew she had talent and that it was missed by the world at large. She is/was so very talented. Didn't she get booted out of the magician's club because it was men only and she was no longer a man?
Sorry no serious discussion, just a trip down memory lane.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

She is brilliant, isn't she? One of the things I most value about my identity is that I have had the chance to know some fabulously talented trans people down the years.

[mrs-trellis.livejournal.com]

It has been interesting reading your public posts of late and, to this one, I felt the need of writing a comment. Not quite a reply, more an abservation or two.

The idea of Tish getting radical is somewhat amusing (and way overdue) and I once met a Kristienne (friend of Adele A?) too who was making a film I think, so nice to know people I once knew are still around, but what I wanted to comment upon was your paragraph on 'stealth'.

Part of deep stealth is the protection of the self, but just as much is the protection of the family. Once upon a time I was a very public and out trans person, but it upset my family who had very good and acceptable reasons for wanting to retain their privacy. The other facet is that set of ceilings you list. I was young when I transitioned and had few problems, such that I quickly realised that although it might be good for 'the community' that I was public and active on their behalf it wasn't likely to be for my future employment and personal life. So I stopped being public but gave private support to the cause whenever I could and quietly drifted into anonymity.

Coming back to the modern day, I am aware that some people now think they know the 'truth' about me, but just as many I can certify do not. Should I upset those who do not? Should I indulge those who might guess something is 'different' about me but aren't certain? Isn't the prevention of the media's intrusion into private lives of every person - LGBTSQQ whatever - something that we should seek to endorse?

I would love to be out about my life history, though 'trans' as a single signifier would miss so much of my true history and would actually be misleading, but I cannot. If I was definite that others knew I would not, could not, ever handle it. It is too far in my past now that to believe it was at all public now would just be too much for me, so deep stealth is the only possible, yet imperfect, alternative. Yes, it is self-censorship but a self-aware silence about a history long past. Why should I ever want to be the next topic of conversation amongst my social circle when it could only be very hurtful to me and those who had no inkling? I do not want fifteen minutes of dubious 'fame' leading to my remaining years in purdah.


And to those who read this, please don't try to guess who I am, even if you think you might know.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I am so glad that someone is there to defend stealth, because I am aware that it needs defending, even though it isn't the choice I made, wasn't a choice particularly available to me. Sufficient of my own identity is invested in being totally out that I am aware of not always being entirely tolerant or sensible on the issue.

I started from the disadvantage of my quite considerable height, but also from what I wanted to do with my life, which was to write and review. I went to a university full of high-profile people, at which, in my earlier version, I had a reasonably high profile myself. As I have been known to remark, there was not much chance of my staying stealth unless I simply never wrote or published a word.

I was lucky in that my family were prepared to cope with this - I stayed away from a lot of the broader family for some years but actually that wasn't nearly as necessary as I thought. Those cousins etc. who cannot cope, never will - those who do, pretty much always did.

Apart from the practicality issues of my not being out, I had ethical concerns that derive from my Gay Liberation history and my feminism - it wasn't just about me. If we were going to resist the hostility within feminism, that had to come from some of us refusing to be ashamed. As I have got older and become aware of being, for some of my friends, a link with the quite distant past, I know that if I were not out, it would be harder for me to be a resource and support. Also, increasingly, I am fascinated by the question of whether or not there are particular creative habits among trans people caused by our need to be mindful and self-monitoring both before the decision to transition when we have to try to stay plausibly in our previous role, and during a life-time of transition when we are unlearning some of those habits and watching ourselves for signs of self-hatred.

And for heavens' sake, 'trans' is so far from being the only thing about me that is relevant - when I get interviewed about my work, it is something the relevance of which I have occasionally to stress.

I feel for your concern and pain, but, you know, what other people know, think or don't accept is so much less important than feeling right with yourself.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

It was interesting listening to Calpernia say how odd she felt being in the heterosexual minority in trans company, interesting because she was being honest, and she was also talking about something real. And yet she was talking about something that is pretty much new - old folks like me and Kristienne were, in our day, the only transdykes we knew. Somehow in the last few years, things have changed.

Despite being a dyke, I sympathised greatly with this, and I'd have liked to have talked to her about it at the party afterwards, but didn't get the chance. It's something Serano talks about as well (and she's also a dyke) - that while the public face of trasgender is god-awful documentaries about hyperfeminine transwomen, within the trans and queer communities themselves, those of us who claim the identities of "man" and "woman" are almost seen as traitors to the cause at times. For female-identified trannydykes, our queerness as dykes isn't enough to redeem us, because that's apparently insufficiently subversive, and many of us have "given in" by taking hormones and *gasp* having surgery.

Calpernia wasn't the only one in the room who felt like she had to duck for expressing that sentiment, straight or not.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

No, that's true enough. I don't feel any particular identity with the transgressive subversivist approach while being perfectly OK with people who do - I did and do take hormones, and I did have surgery, and I have been known to wear makeup when I feel in the mood. I do identify as a woman, and not as a particularly butch one, while dressing in a way I feel comfortable which hasn't included a skirt in decades. My trans identity and my female identity have meshed pretty well over the years in a way that has nothing very much to do with passing or being other than out. The important thing is never to feel we have to be apologetic; that's one of the reasons I so admire Calpernia and want to talk to her some more.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

Not on-topic at all, but I've been trying to figure out how/when I'll be able to see you when you're in NYC! Whereabouts will you be staying?

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Up in Queens - with a friend who will be teaching a lot of the time which leaves me especially free in the day.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

Ah, well that's good, as lunchtimes will work well for me :)

[flamedancer.livejournal.com]

I watched that call for self-censoring at a panel discussion at a Trans conference two years ago. Many of the transmen had found that they could blend and go stealth without much fear and as such had no problems getting marriage licenses to marry women. They objected to even having a panel at the conference for fear that it might draw the attention of the right-wingers and that said right-wingers might take away privilege that they now enjoy. Also disturbing was the complete refusal of the transmen to talk about gains in personal privileges now that they were living as a man in a man’s world. That fluidity of gender privileges is an important part of talking about Patriarchal systems. Fortunately the transwomen had no problems talking about experiencing the loss of some privileges. Still it’s not a complete discussion with out the full circle. Also at the public testimony of our recently passed Domestic Partnership law no one identified themselves as Trans. I wondered if that was self-censorship or if the LGBT rights group had organized the T either off the list or so far at the end, that the hearings closed before they might be heard from.