Tag: transgender

Round and Around We Go

Today marks the first time I have felt able to write since the election just over a week ago. I’ve had numerous conversations with various folks, all of us processing the traumatic grief we are feeling over the election results. 

I have felt rocketed back to the 1990s anti-gay ballot measure era here in Oregon. The feelings this past election have evoked in me are similar, and more profound because they extend across the entire country. And they extend across my family – no one in my family voted in favor of anti-gay ballot measures in the 1990s. These days, I feel betrayed by a few folks I have considered family.

All this said… We did survive the anti-gay  ballot measures, emerging stronger as a community and with a greater sense of power. I have hope that the same can hold true this time around. 

One constant for me is the presence of the Portland LGBTQ+ choruses — beacons of hope into the future. A story from 30 years ago… the Portland Lesbian Choir and Portland Gay Men’s Chorus ventured forth, sometimes individually and sometimes jointly, into small towns in various parts of Oregon. In one town, we performed in the auditorium of a community college. There were right-wing picketers outside the concert, holding up anti-gay  signs. 

The picketers followed us into the auditorium and sat in the back, holding up their signs so those of us on stage could see them. Halfway through the concert, several people put their signs down. My thought at the time was, “They got tired of holding those signs up; they will pick them up when we get ready to leave.” But they didn’t. We changed a few hearts and minds that day. 

The power of music. There is a reason choral singing originated in spiritual traditions. Sharing the air in song thins the barriers between us all, making our interconnection all the more palpable. This was the effect we had on a few picketers that day back in the 1990s. And this is the effect we can have for our community, helping us all remember our interconnection, empowering us all, and lessening our feelings of isolation. Take every opportunity you can find to be sustained by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and Portland Lesbian Choir this season, helping us all support each other through this difficult time.

Let’s Talk

Some years ago, I participated in a project sponsored by the Portland Art Museum, creating an intergenerational LGBTQ+ exhibit. One aspect of the exhibit paired people from different generations, allowing an opportunity for questions and answers in both directions.

I was paired with a 17-year-old non-binary high school student. I was gifted with the opportunity to learn what it was like to live a non-binary identity in high school. And they said to me, “I’m so glad I get to ask you questions, I don’t know anything about the history of this community I’m part of!”

This comment struck me, as it occurred to me, “How could you? How much LGBTQ+ history is taught in any high school?” Upon further inquiry, it turned out they had read a one-paragraph summary of the Stonewall riots at some point. They knew there had been an AIDS epidemic. That was it.

We had a wonderful several-hour conversation as I caught them up on some community history based in my own personal experience; in turn, I learned a lot about navigating high school while living in authenticity with a queer identity.

If we don’t transmit our own community history, it will be lost to history. I have participated in several interviews for Queer archives. I talk about intergenerational communication in presentations. I take advantage of random opportunities to have deep conversations intergenerationally with folks I meet, learning from them as they learn from me.

If we are accurately informed about the past, we will have a better sense of where we came from, and more respect for the elders who helped us get where we are today. And we can avoid rewriting our own history. As an example, I recently heard a young non-binary person refer to the term ‘FTM’ (female-to-male) as a binary slur intended to demean those who transition away from a female birth assignment. In fact, this was a term that came of age when I transitioned in the mid-1990s, one of the first community-created terms to replace ‘transsexual.’ It was a first attempt at trans people taking over our own terminology, not allowing others to define who we were. We felt empowered by the term FTM. I was quite taken aback to hear it described as a slur.

Our communities build and thrive and grow because of the efforts of previous generations. And this includes my own generation. I came out as a lesbian at 19, in 1974. It didn’t occur to me at the time that the blossoming community development of my generation was built on the efforts of a World War II generation that began taking very cautious steps out of the closet. I now wish I’d had an opportunity to talk with someone from that generation as I was coming out.

We all of us come into the middle of history. There’s no such thing as the beginning or the end. We move forward from what has come before, and others come after us to carry on. Respect and story-telling across generations can help our communities be more united in our support of each other, especially in these times of conservative backlash against who we are.

Why Be Visible?

In 1999, trans folks began commemorating trans people who had been murdered because of their identity. November 20 became Trans Day of Remembrance. In 2010, a different idea came into fruition – let’s celebrate our lives as well as commemorating those who have died. Today is Trans Day of Visibility.

Trans people have nothing in common beyond not being okay with the gender we were assigned at birth. Race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation – nothing else is common ground. If you think about it, the same applies to cisgender people – they have nothing automatically in common except that they’re okay with the gender they were assigned at birth. So, when I talk about the importance of visibility, I’m speaking only for myself.

I’m as out as possible for a transman 28 years on hormones. We transmen are an invisible population unless we deliberately come out. I’d have to wear a neon sign around my neck for folks to know I’m trans just by looking at me. So, I do presentations, write for ShoutOut, talk to various groups – whatever I can do to put a face to the identity ‘transman.’ I published my memoir. For me, every day is Trans Day of Visibility.

Why do I feel so strongly about coming out? Because I didn’t know who I was until June of 1995. I had thought I was a lesbian; I was increasingly unhappy and anxious as the years went by, though I had no idea why. I don’t know if I would ever have figured out who I really was if a partner hadn’t come out to me, saying, “I’ve always felt like a man inside and if I had the money, I’d have an operation tomorrow.” This put my identity in my face so prominently, my denial could no longer function.

My partner was 37 at the time. I was 39. Neither of us had ever heard of a transman; neither of us knew anyone who was trans, and would not have been able to accurately define the identity if you’d asked us. My partner happened to see a magazine article about a transman and thus found out transition this direction was even possible. Though my partner had always had the self-knowledge, he had never known transition this direction was a thing. (I say ‘he’ now, though it took a long time for me to use the correct pronoun without bitterness and anger)

I repeat: neither of us had ever heard of a transman. And this is precisely why I come out now at any opportunity, why I welcome visibility – I look to the day when no one will have to wait until 39 to find out their identity exists. The day when people will have an opportunity to understand their identity at young ages because they see themselves reflected in movies, on television, in books.

I see this day on the imminent horizon, far more trans visibility culturally. And this has led to a sharp uptick in anti-trans reactions, from legislation to violence, from people who don’t want us to exist; they see us as polluting U.S. culture, seducing their children away from the literal straight and narrow. What keeps me going, gives me hope for the future, is a saying I keep firmly in mind as I live my life: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you – then you win.