The Human Condition

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Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,

And all my soul, and all my every part;

And for this sin there is no remedy,

It is so grounded inward in my heart.

Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,

No shape so true, no truth of such account,

And for myself mine own worth do define,

As I all other in all worths surmount.

But when my glass shows me myself indeed

Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity,

Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;

Self so self-loving were iniquity.

‘Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,

Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

…Billy Shakespeare

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Self-love. Not narcissism, not excessive sexual interest in myself and my physical features; not that, but caring for myself, nurturing myself. I’m here, honey. I’ll give you a hug. Thanks me.

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TRANSGENDER: having an identity which does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender…

…to straight people we may be just another ‘kind’ of queer, but to many of them and even LGB people we are the Queens of Queer; we are living on the frayed ends of the rainbow flag’s (sometimes tattered) beaded-fringe…we’re really out there, man. Unfortunately, to disappoint all those who choose to exercise their inalienable right to be bigoted, we are just people.

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STIGMA: a mark or sign of disgrace or discredit.

MENTAL ILLNESS: disordered functioning of the mind…

…I love the definitions of stigma and mental illness. They complement each other so well, don’t you think? Kind of like a cocktail, a drink made by mixing various spirits and/or fruit juices…and any hybrid mixture…and any number of different drugs used together to treat a condition. I personally like 1 part stigma to 2 parts mental illness: it has a nice little kick to it. Combine the three and well, whew, you have a real drink here. I – a person – can only be facetious about this. If I wasn’t I’d be blubbering all over this keyboard.

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HISTORY/HERSTORY: When I was growing from a child to an adolescent it was obvious to me that I was a girl, if not to look at. I was not ‘out’ because I didn’t know what it meant and I was only a kid. Coping (as a child) was just a game of hide-n-seek, except there wasn’t anyone seeking. It wasn’t the best way to live, mostly inside my skull, but it was a way to live. Survival wasis survival. It was like being stranded on a mountain-top with only a Mars bar to eat and no rope to climb down (?!). As a teenager, when I understood what it meant, I did not come ‘out’ because I did not feel safe; because I was alone in a family of six, with parents and brothers who thought the youngest was their son, their brother… As an adult I still did not come ‘out’ for fear of reprisal and not knowing at that time that it was possible to alter myself physically. I was encased in a male body and I had to accept it; there was no other option known to me. Now in middle age I am ‘out’ but not transitioning. Why? Why not change? The years have softened the sharp edges of need, even knowing that the surgeries are the best they’ve ever been and that true physical alteration is possible, with all the concomitant extras like larynx surgery to raise the pitch of my voice, etc, etc– But why not? Not out of a sense of martyrdom. Not out of despair that it’s too late. It’s just that my real voice (my writing) has become more important. I’d rather write these words than go look at some lovely frocks (I love lovely frocks). Anyway, I never was much of a gurly-gurl. Younger, I was actually more a tomboy-gurl. (:

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This t’aint going to be a rant, a passionate protest and an appeal to the UNIVERSE for recognition; not a pithy, self-pitying self-righteous cry for earthly or spiritual restitution; not an exercise of self-aggrandizement; not an “I’m more special than you and so-there (insert sound of ‘raspberry’ – pthphbblll – which sounds like a meaty fart) and to hell with you.” Not that. WE ALL deserve raspberrys. It’s THE HUMAN CONDITION.

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There are many, a multitude, an army of flag-wavers and banner carriers. Soldiers. We need you all. You are our VOICE. I don’t need to take on that job because there are others who do it better and will take it on. My voice is not a shout and a balled fist but is just as important.

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School… What can I say? We’ve heard it all before. It could have been less traumatic but it wasn’t. Being a transgender teenager was a little like being a kitten in a porcupine herd.

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Family life? I wuz a boy, a boy and nothin’ else. Don’t even think otherwise. Don’t even try to comprehend that the dust-jacket of my book was the wrong picture and the typeface the wrong graphic ideal.

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Homophobia wasis homophobia. Being beaten up and otherwise molested was just another class, like Biology 101 and English Lit. Bashing wasis bashing.

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Born in 1958, nine, ten and eleven in the late sixties, I was too young to be a hippie but I was a card-carrying member of the ‘lost’ generation that fell through the cracks of time and BIG events: the beatgenerationsocialcivilblackpowergaypridesummeroflovefeministfreetheanimalsjailthecorporateceosmovements–

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Depression, depression, depression…say it enough times and it sounds like an art movement: impressionism, depressionism. Monet on a bad day.

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Later, much later (I was 29): BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER; their big words for my feelings of worthlessness; and self-unknowingness and self-loathing and chronic, iron-hard emptiness; and Peter Pan never grew up either, and he was okay.

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‘member Monet? Manet too.

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Really? How curious. How quaint.

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I read (past tense) MS. Magazine. I still love to leaf through the glossy, extravagant, voluptuous pages of VOGUE. I enjoy beauty and beautiful clothes just as much as the next gurl…but me, VOGUE? I didn’t and don’t have the gams for it.

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Peek-a-boo, I see you!

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Dreams– Shakespeare dreams.

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Topics of Interest that I don’t need to write about:

The Family Slide Show (The Family Shame Game Show)–

Incest for the hell-of-it; thanks UD–

Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda–

Body–

The Mirror–

Quentin Crisp, My Lady-in-Waiting–

Portrait of the writer as a young chick–

For the love of cats (not ‘CATS’)–

Porn-biography, Auto or not–

Breasts and 2B pencils–

SEXCESS–

Lies I told myself–

Lies I told everyone else–

The tortured arteest–

Prescription drugs–

Mental illness…no, I mean WELLNESS–

Elizabeth the First, The Virgin Queen–

Joan, the Maiden of Orleans–

The Vancouver Canucks, Dad–

Ridicule: The Blood Sport–

Hormones, not whoremones–

What’s in a name?–

The Gene Pool–

BARBIE: GIJOE in drag–

GIJOE: BARBIE in drag–

Gurly-gurlz and gurly-boyz–

High heels–

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Anybody for a champagne cocktail?

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A NOTE: the views expressed here are only the notions of the author, and not necessarily those of other t-men or t-women. Our voices and lives are uniquely ours, even if there are common denominators. Salud!