Preparing Your Defenses For Being Yourself: The Tranny Name Game

When you have decided to change your gender and have then decided to change your name, the first things you change are (typically) your social security card and your driver's license.  From there, you engage in all of the paper work you could ever want for in your life.  Changing every credit card, every car title, every anything with your name on it.  This takes a long time.  Trust me.
    When you are finally passing in your true/preferred/chosen gender, these remaining documents (credit cards, car titles), can be the last vestiges of an identity you've tried really hard to move beyond.  But often times you are forced to share them with the real world.  This can lead you to have to prove to other people that you used to be someone else, a someone else that you don't even want to bring up in the first place.
   For instance, some of my card names are changed, but my main debit card is still in my old name.  Luckily, people hardly pay attention to the names on credit cards these days.  But every time I use it, I gear up to mentally prepare myself for how I'm going to answer the question, "Who is (old chick name)?"
   When I first transitioned, I wanted to go to the mat every time someone asked me about the presence of my old name.  I wanted to tell everyone that I was transgendered and I had papers to prove it, but they needed to honor my freakin' debit card, and that is that!
   Now, for better or worse, I think of what story will get me on my way to whatever else I am doing to fastest.  Being my age, my most frequently used excuse is, "Oh, that's my wife's credit card."  People never argue with that.  Nothing like tapping the powers of heterosexual normativity to get me through my day.
   But the reason I brought all of this up is I wanted to tell everyone a funny story:
    I was in a car accident yesterday.  I have been in many (only one other when I've been the driver) and my father was an accident/injury lawyer, so I know the routine.  First, you have to assess the damage to yourself and your car.  If it is okay to move and your car isn't going to explode, get outside of the vehicle and to the road side.  Assess if the other person(s) in the other car are okay--call for ambulance if necessary.  Call the police.  Wait for police to show up and get together your license and registration together.  Get a police report filled out, exchange information with other driver as necessary.
    As I got out of my car yesterday and prepared to speak to the police officer, I looked at my driver's license in one hand (with the correct name on it) and my vehicle's registration and insurance (which still have my old name on it).  I was certain I was going to have to explain to the officer who I was and what I was.  And I had just been in a car accident, so I was in a bit of shock and my brain was moving faster than it should have.  And I had no idea how the police officer, who could decide my fate in what he decides to write in any accident report, would react to my identity.
   When the officer approached me, the first thing he asked is, "Are you hurt?"
   But because I was so wrapped up in my own (mildly insane) world, what I heard was, "Are you her?"
   To which I blurted out (rather loudly), "I'm a transsexual!"  In front of a whole crowd of people at the accident scene, which happened to be at an elementary school.  As all of the children were walking inside.
    I have to give credit to the police officer, who only smiled slightly and then repeated with missing a beat, "No--are you HURT?"
    Boy, did I feel silly.

The Alternatives to Marriage Project

In the spirit of everything I've been posting, here's a link to a group that sort of approaches the marriage issue from more of my perspective:

The Alternatives to Marriage Project

Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend.

When Marriage is a Weapon Used By Your Own Government

I enjoy legal scholarship/learning about the law.  My favorite classes in college that weren't about literature were about the law, interpreting the law, or about social contract theory.  This certainly taints the lenses with which I view the world.

When folks fight for the right to marry, what they are actually fighting for is the right to be able to have a binding legal contract with the person of their choice.   We know they are not fighting for the right to register at Crate and Barrel or the right to throw an expensive gala in honor of themselves and their loved one(s).  Those things are not currently prohibited by any contract law.  They are looking to have legal rights recognized, so they can see a sick person in the hospital when only "family" is allowed, so they can will their property to the person they have spent a chunk of their life with, so they can deal with child custody issues, so they are not in violation of the law, or any contracts the government has created that govern our familial/sexual/romantic relationships with other people.

This is one of the reasons that the whole gay marriage debate bothers me: it is rarely talked about in these terms.  No one wants to talk cold legalese--people want to talk about "recognizing their love" and for the government to understand that the person you've lived with all your life, you view as "your husband/wife/partner" just like straight people get to do.  We take it from contract-making to LOVE, which also fuels the opposition with equally irrelevant rhetoric.

Another reason the fight for "equal marriage rights" ticks me off is because we are assuming that the way our government (state or federal) handles this particular contract process now with straight folks is "okay" or "good" or "healthy".  Not enough folks seem to realize that while some people are fighting to get married, other people are fighting not be forced to be married.  Many government subsidies for poor/underprivileged folks (particularly single mothers who have chosen to have a child or children) at the state level (in some states) are increased if you are married, even if being married does not actually better the situation you are in.  In some states, if a single mother does not get married, their state benefits are taken away altogether. This is because these state governments assume that for a single mother getting married is an "improvement" and should be rewarded.  For details on this particular issue, see Dorothy Robert's books Killing the Black Body, as well as her more recent book, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare.

Although we have since been ushered into the Executive Branch of Hope, I think people should also be aware of how the Bush Administration poured federal dollars into making sure that straight married folks stayed married.

Marriage, as it is currently legally conducted, is being used in some places in punitive ways against straight people.  It seems to me that the wise thing to do, queer or otherwise, would be to find a solution to this legal problem that not only gives "gays" the legal rights they seek, but also frees up others (like single mothers) to build family structures outside of the heterosexual norm without being legally penalized as well.

If Gay Marriage Was Suddenly Allowed In The United States:

--the poorest Americans would still not have access to health care or other basic social services, like job training
--women would still make .75 cents for every dollar a man makes
--abstinence only education would still be par for the course in our public schools
--hate crimes against queer folks would not necessarily decrease
--our country's unemployment rate would still be approaching 10%

It saddens me that Maine made this choice legally.  As far as the things that are fucking up people's lives the fastest here and abroad--these problems will, by and large, not be solved by allowing queers to get married.

Does this mean I don't want queers to get married?  No.  But I get so irritated when marriage becomes the center of the movement that we see in the media.   We are catering to heterosexual normativity and we're still getting turned down even when we try to cater to it.

More on this tomorrow.  Too tired to write more.

From the Post Secret Website. Take From It What You Will.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/Suz8HL7tXsI/AAAAAAAAKM8/7KsTdS5aPp8/s1600-h/shit.jpg

Carole's Critical Mass

My mother grew up Catholic.  I am never sure what she took away from the experience, except a very bizarre relationship with religion and spirituality.

I myself have experimented with various religious/spiritual outlets throughout my life.  So far, what I do celebrate or take solace in is typically either of Jewish or Pagan origin.

When Ick was a part of my life, I would occasionally go to masses on special holidays at the Catholic church he grew up with: St. Bridget's.  Many of the congregants there were quite well off, so it was a spectacular campus and worship space to behold.  Very well kept, always being remodeled or installed with some new fabulous stained glass or some new art dedicated to Mary/Our Holy Father/All That Jazz.  There were tons of fresh cut flowers at every service I went to there, which is no small feat (or price) when you are in a desert.  I enjoyed going for a couple different reasons, which included:

1) Every service was such a spectacle to behold.  They had one woman who was an interpretative dancer (no joke) who danced out the meaning of every service, they had a full choir, the incense, the altar kids . . . all the classic trappings of a Catholic service maxed out to the nines.  To me, it was like going to see the circus, but more serious and with no animal cruelty involved.

2) I was not converting to the religion, no one was trying to convert me, and no one ever tried to convert me on any visit I ever made to St. Bridget's.  They either knew to stay away from me or they were just kind enough to let me exist along side the true believers unmolested.

3) Because I only went on holidays or special occasions (Ick's little sister's confirmation), everyone was always in a good mood.  There was an air of excitement and happiness which filled the room, which always felt rather genuine.  Feeling that, for me, was like basking next to a warm fire on a very cold night.  It was watching a community at work.  And since I had no desire to be an actual part of that community, I felt no alienation--only an odd, once-removed sense of comfort.

One Christmas Eve (I believe around 2000 or 1999), Ick and I had spent the day at the mall and had gotten into a large fight over something stupid and that had put me in a sour mood.  Toss that in with being around my mother on any holiday in my family's later years (usually ended in my parents getting in some kind of rather horrible altercation), and I was on edge going into the evening.  Ick's little sister, Becca, called and invited me to the midnight mass that was going to be held at St. Bridget's earlier in the night.  I told her I would see how I felt, not mentioning any fight or any apprehension on my part.

My family sat down for dinner, and I can't remember what exactly happened, but the fights that evening were, on the richter scale of emotional/physical violence, somewhere in the lower register (4.5ish).  My mother was generally most likely to get into trouble later in the evening, when she had been able to drink more and everyone else in the house had let down their defenses.  Her pattern of behavior was as regular as her anger was erratic, so watching her down a few bottles of wine while sitting on the couch watching old movies on TMC this particular holiday night made a sense of impending doom hang heavy in my chest.

I decided to take Becca's invitation and go to St. Bridget's midnight mass.  I also decided to take my mother along.  Although she did not regularly practice Catholicism, she was still amazingly reverent in any Catholic church.  This is saying a lot, since my mother was never particularly reverent to anyone for any reason if she didn't feel the need.  I thought it would probably make me feel better, keep my mother out of my father's and brother's hair, and generally make the night more disaster proof.

This is the only religious service I ever attended with my mother that was not tied to the funeral of one of her family members.  It was just as beautiful as any other service I had seen at St. Bridget's--perhaps the most beautiful.  I mostly remember the colors, which seemed supernaturally vibrant, like when all the wildflowers in one field bloom at once or when you stare deep into the heart of a dancing fire.  I also remember my mother behaving herself the entire time, which was amazing, considering her blood alcohol level was probably about 1.2.  And the one time she snickered about something that was said, this little old lady sitting next to her actually punched my mother in the shoulder.  This is the kind of punch you usually save for your brother or guy/butch-buddy when they're being kind of a jerk and you want them to shut up.  But it was a delivered by a kind, diminuative little old lady who looked like she could have taught cross-stitching classes.

Ick was not at the service.  I went from not caring that he was there when I arrived (he was also quite a drinker, and was probably in a bottle somewhere by that time of night) to being very glad that he was not.  When I went to St. Bridget's, I realize now, I enjoyed the peace that came with being in a place where not one person in the room had an expectation of me or for me.  I think I have always (and still am) searching for more peaceful places.  I am definitely running a debt in that column of my life.

When my mother and I left the service, we got in the car to drive home.  As I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, my mother began to sob.  Again, because being completely ripped or high was nothing new for her, I had gotten good at gauging at what type of crying signified what.  There was crying when she was upset with me, upset with my dad, mad at the world in general, when she felt that someone else outside of the family had done something to upset her that one of us in the family should personally avenge, etc.

But this crying was different.  I asked what was wrong.  I was not prepared to hear what she said.

"I don't want your life to turn out like mine.  I don't want you to make the decisions I made.  I don't want you to be stuck in a marriage you hate, stuck with someone who hurts you.  I don't want you to be stuck in a life that you hate."

I said nothing.  There was a Bruce Springsteen CD playing in the car.  I patted her shoulder and then drove on, turning up the stereo volume.  When we pulled into out drive way at home, she was still crying.  I tried to console her.  Consoling her at these times was like throwing a try full of ice cubes in the ocean in hopes that you might keep the icecaps from melting: no one, including her, would remember that you did it and you were not going to change anything.  I tried to tell her she wasn't trapped in her life: she could get help, she had graduate degrees, she had access to lots of money/capital, she could do whatever she wanted.  I had said these things so many times I pretty much had it down to a bizarre sales pitch of sorts.

What I did want to say was that I was never going to be anything like her.  Simultaneously, during my whole life up until that point I had been terrified about growing up and turning into the person she was.

I remember that outburst in the car now as one of the nicest things my mother ever said to me.  My mother's other aspirations for me were always rather grandiose (she often wanted to see me become a Supreme Court Justice or a U.S. Senator) or unfortunately incongruous with my own hopes and dreams (me always skinny with bright blonde hair, married to a rich man with a few babies around the house to keep me busy).  But not turning out like her and not being in a life I hate have pushed me to do things at times that I have been scared to do (including transitioning genders).

She doesn't know anything about my life anymore.  But maybe she knows that, for once, I did what she asked of me.

One of the Most Annoying Things I Have Had to Buy Each and Every Time I Move Somewhere New

A plunger.  I am so freakin' tired of having to repurchase plungers.

But spending two bucks is worth the piece of mind I get by not having my landlord send someone into my apartment to plunge it for me.  It is not so much an invasion of privacy as it is admitting you're too lazy to try and plunge it yourself.