Now We Are All Trans.

There's a blog, called The Bilerico Project, that I usually enjoy more than the other popular GLBT blogs. It has a more serious tone than, say, Towleroad, which, even when he's reporting on serious topics, is pretty superficial.

Towleroad and JoeMyGod are way too gay for me, but the contributors on Bilerico are all over the map, men and women and trans people of various identities and ideologies (but leaning heavily toward scholars and activists). Nancy Polikoff, my anti-marriage hero, is a regular contributor. I don't agree with every writer, but, because I find myself so often at odds with the "gay agenda," I like that Bilerico gives space to dissidents.

Recently, though, there was a profoundly stupid post, by a brand new contributor, which more or less berated people who identify themselves as trans, dismissed the very idea of transgender. (I would link to the post, but it's been removed.) Just why the post ended up there is -- despite reading three days of apologizing, explaining, defending, condemning, and then firing the guy -- somewhat of a mystery to me. It was just so ignorant and insulting, and on a blog that seems to take some pride in the fact that it includes trans voices and, for that reason, I would guess, has a substantial trans readership.

But it sparked a conversation, and that's good. Apparently, most of the Gs, Ls, and Bs still have a lot to learn about the Ts.

I especially appreciated this post -- a sort of "Trans 101" -- for its directness and simplicity, for giving us an armature to hang the conversation on, a place to start. My comment and the response I got from the person who wrote the post are below:

This is great. I love the work you've done to begin creating a taxonomy.

But I wonder where old-fashioned homos fit in this. You have the category "gender variants" ("not heterosexual: this is you"), which would seem to include all homos, but you shy away from explicitly including them under that label. Am I misreading?

I would like to push your argument further and say that we are all trans. Even the homosexuals whose presentation conforms to their biological gender in every way except their erotic orientation.

It's queer orthodoxy to say that gender identity and erotic orientation are two discrete phenomena. I'm always trying to make the argument that that is not true. As I see it, homosexual orientation, in and of itself, is in some meaningful way the same thing as transexuality. They both transgress expectations of gender appropriate behavior. I.e., if you are male and attracted to other males, you are behaving in a way that is only appropriate to women.

I've struggled a lot in the last several years with what to call myself, because "gay" has come to signal a lifestyle I don't want to be a part of. "Queer" is simultaneously too raw and too academic. Even though the way I look is pretty straightforward gender-appropriate male, can I be trans? Is there anything problematic about me calling myself trans?

Hi golikewater :)

Thank you. The taxonomy is useful only beause it has such a broad structure -- something as varied and colorful as the trans community is not easily given ever narrowing structures.

Where do old fashioned homos fit into this? As you noted, descriptively, they would, by being homosexual (or bisexual) fall into the category of Gender Variants at the least, simply because by loving someone of the same sex, they are not conforming to the standard expectations of gender role for someone of their gender expression and identity.

Wich, I have discovered, tends to really upset a lot of gay folks, because its assumed that such is bad.

It is not a bad thing, however, unless you think variance from the normative expectations is bad.

On a personal level (but not so much professioally yet), I actually do think that all of us are Trans.

I believe that you've seen through a lot of the underlying separation -- gender, being a social strucutre that is separate from gender identity, does indeed incorporate one's sexual orientation. Part of being a gay man is being a man (gender) that likes other men (gender).

In my personal and professional estimation, the only risk in calling yourself trans is that by doing so, you may experience a loss of privilege and therefore experience social stigma that is part of the reason I wrote this piece.

Thank you.

So I think I might start calling myself trans. It is more accurate than gay. I have had a life-long internal dialogue about my gender. I didn't know how to be a boy, couldn't walk like them, couldn't tip my chin to say hello. At home I would put on my mother's makeup and wrap towels around myself and tuck my penis between my legs. Even so, I never had the kinds of feelings many transexuals describe of knowing they were girls (or boys, for FTMs). It was acting, just as much as putting on jeans and carrying my books at my side was acting. I wouldn't have used these words at the time, but when I remember how I felt about myself when I was a kid, and even into early adulthood, I felt genderless. I never exactly felt like a girl, but I certainly didn't feel like a boy. My boyness was a tenuous and fragile puppet show.

The real difference as I've gotten older is that I've realized, maybe, that it's always a puppet show, even for the straight boys, and I have come to feel more comfortable being male, to enjoy pulling the strings. There are things about me that are stereotypically male and there are also things that are as girly as it gets.

Nature, nurture, blah, blah, who knows -- why do we feel the need to scienceify everything in order to believe it's true? -- I very much like being both male and female, being something in between.

Loretta's Keeping Me Up All Night.

I know I'm not depressed because don't they always say that when you're depressed you sleep all the time? I can't seem to make myself go to bed at night (even though I have nothing to do but look at all the Loretta Lynn clips on youtube -- there are a lot!) and still I wake up at the crack of dawn every morning lately.

There's not one single thing in this clip that I'm not absolutely in love with right now.

There To Love Him.

Yesterday, I watched Be Here to Love Me, a documentary about Townes Van Zandt.

Until I saw this film, I had completely forgotten about my first encounter with him and his music. A friend's band opened for him in New York in 1991, or maybe early 1992. I remember my friend telling everyone that if we didn't come to any other show of hers, we had to come to this one because it was a chance to see Townes Van Zandt close up in a small room. I'd never heard of him.

The show was at the Speakeasy, one of the old folk clubs in the West Village, and it was very small, as I remember. We crammed into a tiny room, my friend's band, Pie Alamo, played a short set, and then Townes Van Zandt came out, sat on a stool with his guitar and played a few songs but mostly talked. Long rambling stories; I don't remember what any of them were about. In my memory, it went on for hours. Too long, really. He died a few years after that, and I wish I remembered it more clearly. I wish I could say that such-and-such song blew me away and I remember every word. I don't. I remember the absolute silence in the room more than anything in particular about the songs. I do remember that he was funny and charming but at times incoherent, and that maybe the silence wasn't only reverence for a great artist but fear that he might never find the thread of that story. Or that he might fall off the stool. I'm gonna guess he was pretty drunk, and everyone in the room was completely in love with him.

I'm ashamed to admit that one possible reason I don't remember the evening in much detail is that I was preoccupied with a man. I was there with a date. A guy I had met at a sex club -- the very early incarnation of Michael Wakefield's "He's Gotta Have It" parties, when he was doing them in his East Village loft. This guy was dark and gorgeous and we had had some of the best sex I've ever had in my life, twice, which I guess I thought might translate into a more lasting relationship. (Go ahead and laugh; it was a long time ago.) We went out twice, not counting the 2 encounters at the club. The Townes Van Zandt show was our last date. He left before the show was over. I scoffed.

Not long after that night, I met J, and not long after that, we auditioned for our first gig as Y'all. It was a cabaret event which a small theater company was producing at Flamingo East, a restaurant on Second Ave. J approached them, and they asked us to come sing a couple songs for the directors of the company. We'd been making up songs at home for fun and playing them for friends, but this was the first time we'd presented them to strangers and we were nervous. We walked into the big empty ballroom upstairs (it was mid afternoon) and there were 3 or 4 people sitting at a single table in the corner. We sat opposite them and sang our little set. I played ukulele. I didn't notice until halfway into the first song that one of the people at the table was the sex club guy. He was friendly, I was friendly, but we didn't acknowledge our previous acquaintance. We got the gig, the rest is history.

Oh, and Michael Wakefield, who I didn't know personally at the time, ended up taking the first publicity photos of Y'all. He was a wonderful photographer in addition to successful sex club mogul. Later Michael became a sort of mentor to J and me. One of our early money-making ventures to finance Y'all was to produce our own bi-weekly sex party. I think we had 3 of them. We made pots of money at the first one, but attendance dropped off quickly, and we moved on to other harebrained schemes.

Be Here to Love Me is a beautiful, very sad film about a great American artist. I recommend it. The clip below is not from the film, I just ran across it and it struck me as being very much like I remember him.

This Moment Sucks.

First I got stood up. I had a date tonight that I was really looking forward to, with a guy I was very smitten with. He texted at the last minute and canceled.

Then -- I guess it came in yesterday's mail, but I just saw it -- I got a notice that the interest on my credit card is going up to 27.24% because my October payment was late. I have an alarm set on my computer to remind me to make this payment every month, but I was in New York for my show, and I missed it. This is the $15,000 in credit card debt that I racked up finishing my film, Life in a Box, in 2005. Optimism is my enemy. That and, I supposed, spending so much time on art that I don't get paid for.

The first part of the day was quite nice. I had lunch with J and a dear friend from Nashville who was here on business and whom I hadn't seen in a long, long time. And I had a nice visit with a new Austin friend. He helped me figure out a problem with my video editing software, and we talked about men and sex and we bitched about how fucking hard it is to make a living and be happy.

I love my friends.

Update: The payment wasn't late. The default rate kicked in because the minimum payment was $302 and I paid $300 last month. For years I've paid $300/month on that card because $300 was about twice the minimum payment and I wanted the balance to go down, even if slowly. But last month the minimum payment doubled, I didn't notice it, and I paid $2 less than the minimum. Two dollars. I'm not going to blame anyone for my financial woes. Obviously I've brought them on myself with the choices I've made. But two dollars?!

Better Horde Some Canned Goods!

Texas is hilarious. Everybody all week has been talking about the snow which was forecast for today. First it was going to be 2 to 3 inches, then 1/2 inch. They let the kids out of school early today; people stayed home from work. (One friend told me that her boss told everyone on Tuesday (on Tuesday!) not to come in on Friday because it was going to snow!

I didn't see any white stuff, but a friend of J's west of the city said it snowed for about two minutes, "but it didn't land." And I heard that in Round Rock it snowed for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile here in Austin it was a gorgeous crisp sunny day in the upper 40s. Another friend of J's described our big winter storm as "really just sweater weather to the rest of the world."

Bunch of freaks.

Where I Am.

It occurred to me that some people might want an update on the aftermath of my accident last summer. I've been putting off writing about the legal stuff because it's not over yet, and I'm not sure what I'm allowed to discuss. I hired a lawyer pretty soon after the accident when it became clear that the process was more complicated (and more treacherous?) than I had expected. I'll go into all the details, if I'm allowed to, when it's settled. Which we're hoping is imminent. What I will reveal is that my medical bills amounted to about $45,000 and the minimum amount of liability insurance in Texas, which many if not most people carry, is $25,000.

As far as healing, I'm pretty much okay. But there are a few lingering effects, even six months later. There is still a slight swelling and dark cast around my right eye, and the bones of my eye socket and jaw and teeth creak and crackle when I touch or move them. There is a tiny scar under my eyebrow. I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night because my neck and shoulders are so sore I have trouble moving them. But that's less and less frequent. Most of the time I'm not conscious of these physical effects.

I wonder sometimes, more often lately, about the psychological effect. I threw myself right back into everything three days after the accident. Summer school, my show in New York in September and October, job hunting, substitute teaching, dating, were all pressing. Not to mention the seemingly huge question of what creative project to undertake next.

Certainly the accident didn't create the chaos. Didn't cause the instability in nearly every area of my life right now. Would I be struggling so if I hadn't a few months ago collided with a car so hard that I have no memory of it still? I guess there's no way to ever answer that question.

Post New York, More Scattered Thoughts About Marriage.



So the New York Senate really doesn't want you to get gay married in New York. 38 - 24. Good to know.

I watched the debate live yesterday, which was fascinating for many reasons: one, because it still feels amazing to me to watch our system of government function in real time. I know we've had C-SPAN like forever, but it still gives me a thrill. History happening. And I was very moved watching Senator Tom Duane speak. I remember when we elected him to city council in 1991, what a thrill that victory was.

It was mostly only those in favor of the bill who speechified. Some of the speeches were quite moving, but still they're making the same arguments that don't convince anyone as far as I can tell. If you think it's wrong for two men to love each other, why would you be swayed by someone telling how much and how truly they love each other?

(It's interesting that those against the bill didn't speak. Maybe because they have no argument that isn't based on religious doctrine. Ruben Diaz, the one senator who spoke against the bill, didn't have any qualms about bringing his Bible into the debate.)

Over and over, when politicians and activists make emotional appeals for gay marriage, they insist that they are not asking to change marriage, they are only asking to be treated equally. I don't buy it. I know many same-sex couples who are absolutely devoted to each other, but not sexually exclusive and (rightly) don't see monogamy as a necessary component of a stable, committed, familial relationship. I'm sure many of these couples would, if they could, marry. I have no doubt there are many monogamous same-sex couples (whatever works), but I strongly suspect this is not the rule.

I believe, in general, that our families are different and that it is disingenuous to claim that by allowing gay couples to marry we will not "change the definition of marriage," to use the religious bigots' phrase. If gays can get married, a heterosexual couple might learn from the homosexual couple next door that it's not the end of the world if you relax the rules a bit, and pretty soon it's just a big orgy in the suburbs. (Hm. Maybe I should be for gay marriage after all.)

I'm curious. Are there still laws against adultery in some states? There must be.

That's The Way I Like It Baby, I Don't Want to Live Forever.

Been listening to some Motorhead tonight, trying to blast out this bad mood. I can't ever listen to this song without starting it over and listening again, and again.



I am seriously spinning my wheels lately. I need to be slapped around or something. I was chatting on facebook with a new friend of mine (I spend a lot of time on facebook lately), and he said it sounded like I need a life coach, to which I said yes but coaching is expensive and my biggest problem is that I'm broke, and he said that he'd sit down with me and help me sort things out, and I almost started crying, I was so touched that someone would do that. I guess what I learned from that emotional response (which felt out of proportion) is that I could use some help. I hadn't really occurred to me that I need help with this.

It's probably good that he hasn't known me for very long. He won't have a narrative already in his head about me; he can start a new one.

My Lemon.

This is my lemon.

We bought a little Meyer lemon tree a couple years ago and planted it in our yard on 15th Street. Last year it produced 2 or 3 fruit, as I remember. When we moved here, we dug it up and brought it with us. It's still in a big pot, because we've been waiting until our container house is finished to decide where to plant it. This year only one lemon survived, but it's huge and almost ripe.

It's been cold the last few days -- Texas cold, which is only down into the 40s at night, 60s in the afternoon -- so I'm getting concerned about it. Should I be covering the tree? or is it really only dangerous if it freezes? Last week, it was so warm the tree thought it was spring and started to blossom. I don't feel so dumb; even the trees don't know what season it is in Texas.

My Last Good Nerve.

I'm already in a shitty mood this morning (that cough I had a couple weeks ago has returned, and I was up till 3 a.m. hacking my guts up) and this little email exchange didn't improve my disposition:

Me:
Hello,

My name is Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, sub ID# xxxx. I just got my first check in the mail, but at the orientation/training I signed up for direct deposit. Please let me know if there was some problem with that, and if there are additional steps I need to take to start direct deposit.

Thanks!
Steven
And the reply:
Remember at the orientation when Ms. [So-and-so] went over the direct deposit information? Your direct deposit does not start until the second pay period you have worked.

Thanks,
[bitch's name]
HR Technician
Now, why would I have emailed asking why my first check wasn't direct deposited if I had remembered that Ms. So-and-so told us at the orientation that direct deposit doesn't start until the second pay period? So who is more stupid? That's what I want to write back, "Dear Ms. I'm-condescending-because-I-hate-my-job: Who is more stupid? Me or you?" Or better yet: "Who hates their job more? Me or you?" I can tell you right now, you will not win that contest.

Another Half-Baked Theory for Monday Morning.

You often hear the hypothesis that homosexual men are caught in eternal adolescence. Because of homophobia, because of our fear of persecution, and because we grow up isolated in a heterosexual world, we are deprived-- at least until recently -- of a natural sexual coming of age, so we're stuck in that experimental stage all our lives. That's why we're promiscuous and turn everything into sexual innuendo. That's the theory, anyway.



At least we made it as far as adolescence. Sometimes I think heterosexual men never make it past kindergarten. Fatherhood only seems to exacerbate it. Finally, they have someone around who is developmentally the same age to play with. Have straight men always acted like little boys or is this something new in our culture? If it is not a new phenomenon, I think it is new for men to be so unapologetic about it. Look at how they dress. There's virtually no difference in the wardrobe of 5-year-olds boys and 40-year-old men.

Come to think of it, the dominant gay male "look" right now is a total appropriation of the straight cargo shorts and baseball cap thing. But it's not because we want to be little boys. It's because we want to be straight men, or have straight boyfriends, or something like that.

Culture sure is complicated.

Precious (Big Spoiler Alert).



J and I just saw Precious. Here's my take:

It's a very conventional film full of stock characters who never surprise. Some really fine acting (especially Mariah Carey, whose character and scenes are the most interesting). The girl who plays Precious is natural and appealing on film but not remarkable in any way, which might just be because there's not much very interesting or complex about the character.

There's this conceit where, when things get really rough for Precious, she mentally exits into a fantasy world where she is a model or a pop star or a singer in a gospel choir with her fantasy boyfriend, but it's kind of cheesy and doesn't ever come together to inform or interact with the real world of the film.

J was exasperated by some sloppy filmmaking, microphones visible at the edges of some shots. I never notice that stuff, but he does and it drives him crazy. It would annoy me, too, but I just don't see it.

What annoyed me is that in such a preachy film, the protagonist's choice to raise her two children on her own instead of giving them up for adoption was presented as the brave moral choice. An uneducated, emotionally and psychologically damaged 16-year-old HIV+ homeless girl with no family and no resources chooses to keep her retarded toddler and newborn child and we're supposed to applaud her? I'm not passing judgment on any actual teenager's choices; I'm questioning the filmmaker's decision to present this as a virtuous act. Precious says "nobody loves me," and the teacher-with-a-heart-of-gold tells her, "Your baby loves you." So she decides to keep her baby because it is the only being who loves her? Good luck with that, kid.

I left the theater wondering what all the fuss is about. My theory (on the fly -- I have to give this some more thought) is that middle-class white people (audiences, critics) are blown away by this film merely because of the facts of the story. Teenage girl suffers lifelong abuse by her mother, rape by her father and two children by him, chaotic and violent schools and neighborhood. For people who don't live in these neighborhoods, the film is exotic and revelatory at the same time. I make no claims to any special insight into the lives of poor urban black people. I live among them, but for the most part I am not invited into their lives. But I have to say it's no surprise or shock, unfortunately, to hear and see this story. Pretty much since I was 20 I've lived in poor, squalid, urban ghettos. I know the lives of many, many poor black people in this country are bad, are worse than most middle-class white people imagine.

Thanksgiving Morning Musings (Having Nothing To Do with Gratitude).

Out shopping for groceries yesterday, J and I had a free-wheeling conversation -- sparked by the recent AMA Awards show. I was remarking how I used to keep up with current music -- I read Billboard every week and even if I didn't like a lot of the songs on the pop charts, I knew the names, knew what was popular -- but I stopped paying much attention a few years ago, and now there are huge stars who have had hit after hit for years and I have no idea what they look like or sound like. Lady Gaga? I know what Kanye West looks like (sort of, if he wears the glasses) but I can't distinguish his songs from any other pop hip-hop song on the radio. I'm not saying they all sound alike, I'm saying they all sound alike to me.

Because I follow politics more closely than popular music, I did catch the Adam Lambert/Out Magazine brouhaha -- which was nearly as mind-numbingly boring as Lady Gaga's burning piano -- but I felt a certain obligation.

I was surprised and I have to say somewhat relieved to learn this morning that we can blame Adam Lambert for the failure of the gay civil rights movement. Just when we were successfully sneaking into the mainstream with weddings and babies, etc., here comes an ignorant, selfish pop star to remind everyone that we're actually, um, gay. (Ignore that man getting a fake blowjob, America! He's not one of us. Marriage is what we want, not sex. We promise we'll be less gay if you let us get married. No more blowjobs and buttfucking -- everyone knows married people don't have sex.)

Anyway, eventually the conversation between J and me got around to where it always seems to get around to lately: men. My major insight was that if you're going to date a younger man, it's better to date a man 20 years younger than say 10 years younger, because the 20-somethings are all obsessed with the 80s right now. The pop culture of that decade is, in some twisted way, formative for you both, so you're more likely to have cultural touchstones in common. I can talk about Keith Haring, ACT UP, early Madonna, and they eat it up, whereas guys who came of age in the 90s ... I don't have much to say about 'N Sync and TLC. I just have to be careful about saying things like (in a whiny, pedantic monotone): "Lady Gaga is not doing anything Madonna didn't do better in 1985." I'm pretty sure that's unattractive.

The Chapman Brothers.

A friend posted this on facebook. I thought I'd share it with you and write a response, but I just can't think of anything to say that doesn't pale in comparison to the experience of watching it.

No emotion left untouched.



There's something I really like about the woman introducing them, her directness and compassion. She speaks so clearly, and I love how her face lights up at the end of her spiel. I feel like I know her.

Sitting Ducks.

This is pretty interesting. You have to wonder how carefully it was edited to make the crowd look ridiculous. But, I don't know, maybe it didn't take much editing. I've never actually talked to anyone who likes Sarah Palin, but when I read stuff by her supporters it always comes across like the people in this video: full of catch-phrases, jingoistic, and appallingly ignorant.

I can't help but wonder how easy it would have been to videotape a bunch of people in line at an Obama booksigning and then edit together all the people talking out their asses having no idea what Obama actually wrote about, or stands for, or believes, or did in office. People have a hard time with the details. I think there are two things at play. One is that it's just hard to remember stuff and even harder to keep a grasp on how issues connect. Most people just don't know much about government and, whichever side they're on, can't call forth much beyond the talking points. I consider myself pretty well-informed, engaged with the issues, but if you asked me right now what cap and trade means, I'd struggle for a bit to give you a definition and to express a clear point of view about it. Especially if you were pointing a video camera at me.

The other phenomenon of course is that people are always looking for a savior and are inclined to believe what they wish were true, ignoring the evidence. Just look at how surprised and disappointed many progressives are by Obama's moderately conservative style as president.

You Do It.

According to this study, if we think someone else is an expert at something, our own brains shut down and let that person take care of it. If we trust the person making the decision, our own decision-making apparatus turns itself off. Duh, right? But it's interesting to see the phenomenon presented so graphically in a brain scan.

It's like in marriages, if one partner is (or just seems to be, or we think he is or, etc.) very effective in some area, the other partner lets him or her take care of it. You know about cars, so you keep track of when to change the oil. You're better at math, you pay the bills. You cook, I'll wash the dishes. If one partner is hyper-functional in an area, the other partner gets less and less effective in that area. It just makes sense; division of labor makes a house hum.

Is this any more complex than our brains just looking for a break where they can find one? I often get frustrated with myself because if someone else is driving, I don't pay attention to where I am. So if I have to get there by myself next time, even if I've been there dozens of times I have no idea where it is or how to get there. This even happens when I'm walking with someone. If I think my companion knows the way, I stop paying attention. Trouble is, often that person and I are both thinking the same thing and we get totally lost. And it feels involuntary, it's as if I can't even make myself pay attention if I try.

I kind of see this study as evidence of something very nice about how we work together as organisms. We don't all need to be taking care of everything, do we? The discouraging aspect is, like so many things, the biological mechanism doesn't seem to take into account our infinite ability and desire to deceive each other.