One Thing To Say

Callan Williams put this in a recent blog post. It reminds me that we should not be too hard on the beginners, and the crossdressers. As Linda Bedore told me when I was laughing at some crossdressers at last year's spring Getaway en Femme. "... remember they feel the same way we do!" Thanks Linda for setting me straight. I needed I needed that.

Reply to a list post:

What’s my one message about trans that I would like to get out?

This:

Every time you see someone express transgender, they are expressing something they know to be true about themselves in the best way they know how to do it.

No matter how dramatic or cartoony or contradictory or ambiguous or factually false someone’s trans expression may seem to you, no matter how that expression is laced with shame, self-loathing, and defensive rationalizations, it is an expression that comes from deep inside of them. And only by being affirmed in that expression can they find deeper meanings, become more mature in their self knowledge & expression. If they feel repressed, they will remain clouded and confused in their understanding and their choices.

Every time you see someone express transgender, they are expressing something they know to be true about themselves in the best way they know how to do it.

That’s the one thing I want people to know.

One Response to “Dyke”

I just made this comment to Callan Williams post in her blog about being a femme trans-woman.

1. Vickie Davis Says:
   November 7th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

   “Double Queer,” what an awful thought! But I guess that describes me too. Hot guys never “make me melt,” although it does for several of my trans friends. I guess that does give them more to choose from out there.

   I had been wondering for a while now, if I was to attempt to attract a lesbian, which I am ready to try to do, do I present as the femme or the butch? or does it matter? I don’t have either an answer or a prospect yet. I am every bit at a loss, much the same way I was as a guy. So you know I did not go out much. I had to be asked out when I presented as a guy, so I guess that makes me the femme. Now what do I do?

   
   

   Hugs,

   
   

   Vickie

   
   

"best kind of therapy"

I received this a few days ago from Callan Williams. I must have sent her an email a while back and she was responding to the signature block in my email. It has the something that Dr. Laura says in her ads on XM Radio.

"I find it is the best kind of therapy is talking to someone who has been there, done that."

You can read her blog at http://callan.wordpress.com/.

On 5/11/07, Callan <transpractice@gmail.com>; wrote:

I find it is the best kind of therapy is talking
to someone who has been there, done that.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
(God help me, I am quoting her, of all
people, but I love that quote.)

I have a problem with this quote, and not just because Exercise Therapist Schlessenger said it.

There is no doubt that the limits of someone's fears, usually indicated by the limits of their experience, are a key indicator of their value in the therapeutic process. I have often found that when I talk about business and power, therapists blanch. I remember going to my sister's acupuncturist, who fancied himself a therapist, who spent the introductory and hour and a half negating everything I said, then having the arrogance to say that his blank notepad was an achievement; the fewest notes he ever took, a blank slate to start on.

I found him intentionally blanking me.

The best kind of therapy, though, is the therapy that helps you hear and trust your own voice. It is the therapy of encouragement and possibility, not just the therapy of talking to someone, whoever that is.

The best kind of therapy is making art, whatever art means to you, potent symbols of your experience, understanding, belief and vision, that you can share with the world in a way that helps you shape it into a more potent expression. It's not just talking, it is making manifest what is inside of you in a way that makes you visible to the world and to yourself. You can no more see your desires and your essence than you can see the back of your head, so it is only expressing them that makes them visible.

This is the challenge for so many transpeople. We decide that our desires must fit into some box, and we hold tight to that box to stay in the system of desire, and that attempt to hold on, to parrot the phrases we hope work, ends up blocking our own voices.

Problem is that while we are desperately trying to hold on, the one thing we don't want to hear, don't want to face, are people who have tried that gambit and had it fail for them. Crossdressers & gays who hold on to manhood, transsexuals who demand others respect the surgically created "womanhood" that healed them, well, they all don't want to hear from those who have "been there, done that" and found it lacking.
The only thing that can change them is the need and the possibility of hearing their own voice, small & still behind the posturing of shoulda, woulda, coulda.

They need art, and people who can affirm that art.

Or at least, that's the way I see it.

Here is my reply.

From: Vickie Davis <davis.vickie@gmail.com>;
Date: May 12, 2007 7:56 PM
Subject: Re: "best kind of therapy"
To: Callan <transpractice@gmail.com>;

Callan,

I was referring to Dr. Laura Schlessinger of the radio talk show, not Nathan Schlessinger, M.D. She was seen by many, to be quite gay hating, and she pissed off many, with her strict right wing beliefs and Old Testament values. I found she usually gave good advice, but did not like her style, too abrasive for me. I seldom listen to her show, maybe on a long trip in a car, but never at home. I do Air America mostly now.

I understand you point about that quote, but I was coming from support group, point of view. I could not have left the house, in girl mode, with out the Tennessee Vals a bit over three years ago. The Tvals is an independent Nashville CD/TG/TS support group, of which I am on the board now. Meeting them changed my live. Now I can, at 62 go most anyplace in girl mode. I even flew to visit my friend Linda Badore, here in Phoenix, in girl mode, with boy ID. Now that is a thrill, and so was visiting the American Legion fish fry and dance last night. I am sure those old vets had no clue they we dancing with some trannies.

Thanks for your email, I always enjoy your essays. I have my Google Reader set to tell me, when you make an update to you blog. I tell everyone, that I do not understand, why your work is not more popular. I just wish I could write 1/2 as well as you.

Oh, I see that you have updated http://callan.transpractice.com/ site, I am glad you added that picture page. The only picture of you I had ever seen of you was the one on Gwen Smith's site. I see you have a bigger version posted now. Until I found that I had no clue to how you looked.

Thanks again for the email. I am honored by you reply.

Hugs,

Vickie

What You Need To Know About My Transgender « Callan Williams

Note: I have a comment to Callan, at the botton of this post.

What You Need To Know About My Transgender

September 9, 2002

1) My transgender is about my work, my calling.

I see my clothes as my work clothes.

I don’t do trans to get dates — trans, in fact, requires leaving the system of desire.

I don’t do trans for simple reasons, though, like many, for me pure work is play, and fun. Being immersed and focused and feeling like you are creating good things is fun.

Trans may be about Eros, but about Eros in general, the passion for living, not just about sexuality. Things aren’t about sex or reality — they are about who we are in a whole, integrated way.

What this means is that it is only by being visible as trans, putting on the work clothes, making connections & building audiences, is the only way to do the work.

I see myself as the continuation of a long tradition of shamans who walk between worlds, even the worlds of men and women, who have existed in every human culture at every time. I am liminal, a door between worlds. My mission statement is in a phrase I heard from anthropologist Anne Bolin: “In cultures where gender is rigidly bi-polar, rituals of gender crossing remind us of our continuous common humanity.”

I remind people that separations are illusions, that we are all connected, and that has always been the message of the shaman.

2) The challenge for me is becoming product.

For good or for bad, getting what you need, be that as simple as cash, or as complicated as having people quote you in discussions, you have to become story. It’s about becoming abstracted, a hero AND a cartoon, which is both potent and risky.

This means that I have to become a symbol, a projection, an object, while still being human.

After you have spent all that time and effort breaking free of the box, moving from symbol to meaning, moving back into another box seems very, very hard.

3) The hardest thing about trans is doing it alone.

For most people, life is like riding a bicycle. Slow down, and momentum from people around you keeps pulling you forward.

For people on their own path, life is like running a marathon. Slow down and you lose momentum and have to restart.

Trannys don’t come from a community that is like them, so the issues aren’t taught, worked out. We each struggle very much alone, and that means we often lose momentum and falter.

4) The most difficult thing about trans is negotiating others fears.

Too often people feel scared by what challenges their assumptions, what makes them stretch, what brings up their own stuff, and when they get scared, they find it easier to blame it on what scares them than to confront the basis of their own fears. We become a “phobogenic object,” invested with their own terrors, and like voodoo, they assume that if we are erased, their fears will never have to be faced.

Transpeople learn early that expressing their nature brings torrents of abuse from the world. The world wants to do the good and nice and appropriate thing by shaming people into normativity, which is good for the status quo and good for the individual. The attempt to erase the nature is seen as caring and appropriate — these people should understand reality, or at least the reality as we have accepted it.

Even when talking with mothers of gay and lesbian children, they express fear for their kids, a fear that can never be removed, but a fear that their children have to get past. It’s not useful to have parents fear, it’s useful to have parents help and encourage.

There is an old joke about a top professional golfer who is offered an enormous sum to play a round. When they asked what handicap their opponent wanted, they were told “Three Gotchas.” They accepted the offer, and on the first hole, just as they were about to drive, their opponent rammed a hand between their legs and screamed “Gotcha!” which caused them to miss the shot. The same thing happened on the second green, just as they were about to putt. When the golfer got in the clubhouse, they had lost by seven strokes. When someone asked why they had lost, they said “Have you ever tried to play 17 holes waiting for the third gotcha?” This is the power of stigma — when you are used to abuse, you lose your grace and power.

When you think you are already on the edge, or even over it, it becomes hard to take the simple risks humans have to take to get others to agree with us, to take power in the world. When we play safe and defended, we rarely get what we need, rarely make the changes that we know will benefit all.

To ask the person assigned as fear producing, who has been bashed by stigma, to be the one who always has to negotiate the fears of others is a daunting and overwhelming task. People often assume that their fears must be respected, but to respect fear rather than real danger is to allow fear to shape our world, rather than to allow love to do that task.

5) The most painful thing about trans is not being able to give your gifts and have them accepted.

When we accept the gifts of another, we accept them. For many, who don’t want to accept people who challenge their beliefs in comforting boundaries that separate good from bad, accepting the gifts of people they believe are acting in immoral or inappropriate ways is impossible.

What does this mean? It means that because of other people’s belief in the need to keep separate, to minimize and stigmatize by isolation, to avoid what causes them challenge and discomfort, to believe in their fears, people who are diverse are seen as less than human and their gifts are not accepted.

It pains me most not to have been able to feel safe enough to give all of me to my community, and to get the simple rewards in return, just because my nature is one that many would rather not exist.

Trans rights are not about special rights, they are about simply having the right to contribute and be rewarded for those contributions to the mainstream. This right is key not only to our financial well being, it is key to our health & our pride, and, believe it or not, is a key to really embracing diversity and innovation for all of society.

6) I know that I will never be female.

We have no way to change sex, at least not today. We can change the appearance of sex, in some ways, but we can’t change sex.

If we could change sex, would I have made that choice? Probably. But since we can’t, it’s not a relevant question.

That means I have to change gender role without changing sex. An issue.

I know that bones don’t lie, that I won’t pass as being born female. Every tranny has a passing distance, a space within which their history and biology is revealed. For some trans, especially slight transwomen who transitioned early, or transmen, that passing distance is quite close, but at some point, they become visible.

My transgender is an attempt to tell the truth about my inner nature, not an attempt to lie about my sex.

7) I am not two people.

I am not two different people with two different names depending on my clothes. I find that model wrong and disconcerting. I do change role and clothes, but to me at this point, no more than anyone else who has plays multiple roles in their life, like mother, businessperson and laugher.

8 ) I am not typical of current transgender thought.

I have been strange from the first days when I was a guy in a dress, keeping my given name, which is different than traditional transvestite or transsexual behaviors. Today, I don’t fit neatly into any transgender model that exists.

I have always been striving for balance, in interesting ways. The vast majority of trannys are stuck in a second adolescence, because there are no grown up models for trans. That is a challenge — to create new models.

No matter how it makes you feel, my transgender expression is about my trying to find a connection to what links us all, to express my view of our shared truth as well as possible, not about claiming I speak for others.

9) The challenge is to both be defended and open.

In many ways, transpeople can best be categorized by their defenses. For many, they choose to create walls between themselves and others in order to stay beyond the pain of stigma that trannys are subject to.

For me, though, I have always needed to stay connected, which is why I have been too loathe to challenge the world with my transgender. I need to be in touch with the world to see and understand it, and I like connections.

This is a big challenge, to be both open and defended, between being so raw that you become brittle, breaking at every new affront or being so isolated that you never really open to others.

The trick is to stay in the story.

But that’s the bigger vision, right there.

I will quote you Callen!

I love your work and I remember it from years ago. I recently rediscovered your work during a search for my old user ID "vickiecd". Someone had saved the archives of the old email list Trans-Theory, and you had a post there about "emigrating to woman." I had a posting that was the "Next message:" after yours.

I am so glad I found you again.

Do Transsexuals Have A Choice?

I know this is long, but it is good stuff.

Any comments?

She said this over 10 years ago:

But the model that says TS is a disease, ... But today even many transsexuals reject that illness model.

That is what the Harry Benjamin Syndrome folks are saying. Not all that new, I guess.

I don't know why Callan is not better known. Probably because it was so hard to reformat her work and make the white text bold. LOL







I discovered a picture of Callan, on one of Gwen Smiths pages.

Hugs,

Vickie

Do Transsexuals Have A Choice?

Callan Williams Copyright © 1996

I believe that we have no choice about being born with a predisposition to transgender, no choice to be transsexual or whatever other word you use to describe it, but we do choose what we want to do about it. The notion of choice -- and of taking responsibility for that choice -- is crucial to our being able to become the best we can be in this world. To be able to choose is to be empowered in this world.

Many transsexuals argue that they have no choice but to have surgery, that they have no choice over the chain of events that leads them to surgery. For some, this fundamental tenet of faith is so strong that they feel if a person feels they have choice over SRS, they are not really a transsexual, for transsexuals have no choice. This is a key part of their history, and many get distressed when anyone talks about the choices a transsexual person has to make in this world.

Where do choices end for transsexuals? They choose where they go for surgery. They choose when to have surgery. They choose how to pay for surgery. They choose to have a graft or not. They choose where to transition, choose how and what to tell their friends and family. They even choose what they wear to and from the hospital. They choose all these things, but many insist that they don't actually choose to gendershift and have surgery. You may wonder what they would have done if surgery was not an option -- as it wasn't until about 40 years ago. Life is about the cycle of death and rebirth, and we all choose to die in some way -- and be reborn, though the death of the physical body is the ultimate choice.

Rational Choices

I actually had one TS argue that no rational person would choose gendershift and surgery, so therefore it can't be a rational choice. Is it a rational choice for a CD to put on a dress and go to the mall? The rationality of decisions is very much about the way you view the options.

This culture wants to convince us that no rational person would do either, and enforces that decision with stigma. Who would choose to take the pain that one has in telling their mother, their kids, their wife that they choose to change gender and/or sex -- if even temporarily? Heterosexism requires the separation of men and women, and works hard to tell us that to cross that line is a horrible and bizarre thing. But it isn't -- or at least that is the message of the transgender paradigm.

The difference seems to be as simple as the difference between "I had no other choice but to have surgery" and "I felt I had no other choice but to have surgery." The first statement denies any possibility of other choices, while the second affirms that we saw surgery as the right choice for us, whatever the drawbacks.

I do understand that many TS people who have chosen gendershift and surgery do feel they had no other choice, that they had exhausted their other options -- but that is not unique to transsexuals. The ability to relinquish responsibility for our actions because we saw no other choice than to drink, leave, kill, (or any other action) opens up an excuse for all. This makes me very uncomfortable.

I believe that TS people who choose surgery make the best choice they can under the circumstances -- but actually going through with gendershift and surgery has been made to seem so selfish and harebrained that they choose to claim no choice in the matter. "I didn't want to do it! I had to! My nature forced me into it!"

Gendershift and surgery are fine and honorable choices, not selfish or hare-brained. They are often the best choice that we can make to get on with our lives. I applaud and admire their choice, as a transgendered and a transsexual person to bring their gender, role and body into harmony.

Stigma and The Closet

If it was easier to make the choice to gendershift, we would not have so many TG people twisted by the closet, torn apart by being impaled on the horns of the dilemma of which way to turn. We wouldn't have to wait until everything else in our life is gone before we chose to walk through the wall of gender -- and much of the pain of living with stigma would be lessened and we could get on with our lives and our contributions to the world.

But the model that says TS is a disease, a birth defect, means it is something to run from and deny, not to be proud of. I know many crossdressers who longed to be TS, because that was explainable, took you out of the range of making a choice to change clothes. But today even many transsexuals reject that illness model.

James Green was talking to a big old shrink at an APA convention. When he told the shrink that he was talking about transgender, transsexuality, the shrink replied "I don't think God makes mistakes." James simply answered, "Neither do I." We are not mistakes, just humans with special gifts and challenges, like any other human. We can choose to see our transgendered nature as a curse, or simply another way humans are born.

This is a big deal. Do we actually have choice over how we live our lives, even if we don't have choice over who we are? Are we slaves to the world, or do we control our destiny by the choices we make?

What Is Choice?

Much of this discussion rides on how we define "choice." It is clear that our choices are based on both biological predisposition and a wide range of other environmental factors, and it is possible to argue that humans are merely victims of their genetic and cultural programming, and have no true choice. You can argue that humans are so limited by their history that free choice, free will is not an option -- we are just meat puppets.

But to make that argument is to take away our responsibility for change, for transformation. If we are only slaves to our past, then we have no personal responsibility -- or personal freedom. We become only a part of the collective, not individuals. Robert Schuller preaches on the fact that this century has been one of collectivism, of serving the machine, but the pendulum is swinging back in the next century to the individual. He reminds us of our individual responsibility and choice -- "If it is to be, it is up to me!"

Transgendered people make individual choices. It is clear that well over 90% of people in this culture don't have massive discomfort at living in a standardized gender role. TG people don't ask for the ability to change the role of everyone, but the ability of individuals to define their own role, either crossing the sex/gender line permanently or exploring the turf around it. We don't choose for the culture as a whole, but we do claim the right to choose for ourselves, to not simply take what is issued at birth.

Not every choice is for something -- we often choose against something. We choose not to be men, but does that mean we choose to be women? For some of us we do, but for others the choice is more complex. For many of us we choose not to choose, but to let the world push us where it will -- yet does that mean that we haven't made a choice?

We always make the best choice we can -- even if we don't understand why we made the choice. Even when we make choices that appear self destructive, we are choosing to destroy something that is haunting us. We often choose to paint ourselves into a corner so that the only choice left to us is the one we want, or the one that we think we deserve -- and so we get it without seeming to make a choice. This is especially true of choices that carry such stigma as transgender and sexual orientation -- we are so afraid of being shunned, isolated, separated for simply doing what will satisfy us that we try to abdicate the choice.

The Fear Of Choice

Erica Jong notes that one reason people are so afraid of choice is because it seems so easy to make the wrong one. It's so easy, especially in a culture where choice is frowned on, one that socializes us to serve the machine, to become homogenized. People club us about our choices -- "If you really loved me, you would never hurt me this way!" -- when our choices are not about hurting them but rather about finding what we need. We become gun-shy and afraid of losing love and connection, so we try to find ways to not be isolated, to not have to take the responsibility and the consequences of our choices. We need to believe we are lovable for who we are, not just because we choose to do what others want us to.

We also recognize that taking responsibility for our choices now means we always had responsibility for our choices -- and then we have to forgive ourselves our past transgressions, which is hard for anyone. Learning to love ourselves unconditionally, not just for what we did or didn't do but simply for what we are, is the basis of learning to love others that way.

More Choices Than Ever

As others have noted, the range of choice that is open to us is expanding geometrically. We have choices of communication, of travel, of medical treatments, of lives that were unknown just a few years ago -- and the possibilities that are just over the horizon are even more boggling. We are not living in a world that is getting more simple, but one that is getting vastly more complex, where the range of choice will allow any individual to become who they want to be.

The simple fact that we have so much more information available to us opens up our choices immensely. We now see options we would not have known existed before.

To be prepared to handle this range, we have to start teaching kids to make intelligent choices, not merely to follow rote patterns. We can't simply crave going back to a simpler time -- it isn't going to happen, and those simple times weren't really all that much fun because we were chastised, stigmatized, humiliated and declared criminal for the choices we made that seemed "anti-social." The drug problem is a good example. While some people tried to have kids "just say no," those in recovery found that they couldn't kick until they took responsibility for their own choices, and trusted, rather than fought, the callings of their "higher power."

Society has an interest in making the choice to be TG -- or to live as a gay person, or lots of other choices -- as difficult as possible. The easier the choice, the more people will take it -- and that may be seen as a destabilizing force. If people thought they could choose to change without stigma, they would -- and where would we be then? There are reasons that the hurdles for SRS are so high, reasons the gatekeepers fight so hard -- and that we become who they expect us to be in order to get what we want and what we need.

Taking Responsibility For Choices

I watched Martine Rothblatt confound an interviewer on local TV. As the interviewer tried to get the "no choice" phrase out of her, she simply said she had lived as a man and had always wanted to live as a woman, and her wife and kids thought it was OK, so she did. The interviewer looked stymied, not understanding how anyone would gendershift just because they chose to. Gendershift is so drastic, so irreversible, so weird, so isolating -- why would anyone choose to do this?

But Martine knows that she made a choice for change. It was her time and her way. She was born transgendered, and she chose to gendershift.

We have no choice in the gender we are assigned by our parents, no choice in what they expect us to wear, to do. For them it is a simple process of only looking at what is between our legs -- not what is in our hearts. Some children like red shirts, others blue ones. Do we look for a cause in these choices? Could we find one if we did? But when some children with penises prefer dresses and some children with vaginas prefer no dresses, we look for a cause. Why are these choices different? Because the world says they are, that's all.

The Pressure To Make the "Right" Choice

I understand the enormous pressure that comes from growing up gender queer, transgendered, or even transsexual in this culture -- to know what is expected of you was somehow contrary to your nature. I understand that for many, the pressure is so intense that choosing surgery is the only choice they see for happiness -- and that many of us were in so much pain that they saw the choice between surgery and death as the only choice at all.

But taking responsibility for your choices in no way diminishes the pain and suffering you felt. In fact, taking responsibility confirms your ability to do something about your pain and suffering.

By choosing to gendershift, have SRS or transgress gender in other ways, you cease to be a victim to the pressure the outside world puts on you to conform to gender standards. We are shaped by peer pressure whether we resist it or conform to it, but by choosing our own path we become not merely followers or reactionaries, but actively responsible for shaping our own life and future.

Choices and Power

Declaring the ability to choose the shape and direction of our life gives us the power to transcend our history, to become more than slaves to our predisposition and our environment. Our choices will be shaped by who we are and where we have been -- but they will not be limited by that. I have a role that I wouldn't have chosen for myself given the stigmas of this culture -- but somehow it feels like the absolutely right choice. This is the dilemma of humans.

Think of the people who moan: "I have no choice but to go to work because of the bills!" But you can reduce the bills, choose to live more simply, choose other work -- you do have choices, even if some of them require you to do unpleasant things, to renounce something you want now in order to get something you want more later. When you choose to work for long term happiness, you have stopped being a victim -- and that means you are in control.

The point is that, whatever limits we have to free will, in the long run it is our choices -- not the least of which is how we choose to see the world -- that determines the ultimate direction of our life, and determines our ultimate happiness. It only takes a little bit of choice to make a big difference to any human life. We can transcend our history -- we are humans.

If we want to stop being victims, we must take responsibility for our choices -- even those choices which are almost unfathomable to most in this heterosexist culture. We must be able to satisfy ourselves, to become congruent and whole, even if some people think we are just plain nuts.

Even if we simply say "I didn't choose to kill myself and put an end to other's embarrassment with me, rather I chose to live in a way that I could be happy and effective," we need to take pride in our choices.

To paraphrase what JoAnn Roberts often reminds us, in the words of John Steakley, "You are what you [choose to] do when it counts." Once we have control of and responsibility for our own lives -- and we don't simply give in to nature or the culture -- then we can start to become full and complete individuals.

And to me, that choice is worth working very, very hard for.

2) Transitioning is always a choice.

3) If you are TS you're always forced...... At least to make a choice.

--

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Yahoo IM: vickiecd
Email: davis.vickie@gmail.com
http://vickiedavis.blogspot.com/
http://profiles.yahoo.com/vickiecd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FhjgxjAJxU
Website Director of http://tvals.org/

Maybe some people want to be lesbians or gay men
to be a part of the crowd
but nobody wants to be transsexual to be part of a crowd --
they just want to be themselves.
Callan Williams

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