Reading Ourselves

Transsexual Women Tell Their Stories

"It's beautiful," I exclaim. It is, in fact, a particularly fine watch my father has just bought for my birthday, the jeweled face throwing back at me the summer's sunlight. "It's ... it's...," I hesitate, searching for just the right word, -it's divine," I breathe happily. My father's face comes up sharply, his pupils narrowing. "Boys don't say divine." And he watches me, his bead cocked slightly to one side. I open my mouth to question this unfathomable statement, as if certain dictionary words were colored blue for boys and pink for girls, but there is something hard in his voice and eyes and suddenly, my pleasure evaporated and replaced entirely by fear, I know if I question him I'll probably get the palm of his hand. You know, when a six-foot two-and-a-half-inch, 200-pound man hits you in the face with his open hand, it's like being hit in the bead with a ham. And so mumbling something to my feet like, "Well it is very nice," I make a small mental note to avoid this particular word in the future.

* * *

I was born a woman. I can no more visualize myself as a man than any other person born a woman could, although I might have a little better understanding than most women what it means to live as a man. For me to not be a woman would be for me to cease to be. I was also born with a penis. This is probably the greatest source of pain in my life. There hasn't been a single day in my life that I haven't cursed this fact

* * *

I am a child and I am alone. I'm alone in the living room and no one else is in the apartment I have one light on and I have the music loud and I dance and I dance and no one knows. I look in a mirror and I see myself, I see a girl, my name is Cailin. It feels so delicious I want to cry just thinking about it and I am free.

* * *

Sometimes feminists have asked me why, if I consider sex roles both unjust and ridiculous, do I not just live as a man and express both my "feminine" and my "masculine" qualities in that way? In doing this they are assuming that somehow I have chosen to be a woman so that I can be "feminine." In fact, I have chosen to live as a woman simply because that is what I am, and because only by affirming my femaleness and sisterhood with all women can I be myself, strong and filled with energy as well as sensitive. How would these feminists feel about living as men? Obviously they would consider it a masquerade, and would demand their right to celebrate their femaleness. So do 1.

* * *

I grew up with enormous feelings of inferiority, utterly lacking in self-confidence, extremely introverted, and feeling totally incapable of doing those things that boys are expected to be able to do, because I perceived myself and was perceived by others as being more like a girl than a boy. I was treated very much as if I were a girl because I was unable to conform to male gender role expectations, and I therefore internalized much of the same societal oppression that girls typically do. I attained no self-confidence as a result of being born male or being raised as a boy. Quite the contrary, it was only after becoming a woman that I was able to develop a sense of self-confidence and assertiveness, and then only after a long and excruciating struggle.

* * *

Six weeks before my genital surgery, I find a bean-sized lump in my left breast. My physician schedules me for a mammogram. I sit nervously on a cheap plastic chair, dressed in my underwear and a one-piece hospital gown, the soft that makes you feel vulnerable. Usually they also make me think of my grandmother, who gave us gowns like that to sleep in when she took care of us. But today I just feel vulnerable. Will I lose a breast? Will I lose my life? Will I lose my hard-won spot on the surgical calendar? I'm having thoughts like, 'Well, if I can never be a whole woman, at least I'll have had all the right parts, just not all at the same time." Guilty thoughts that this is what I deserve for trying to "go against nature" come inching through. I try to imagine dating as a transsexual woman with a mastectomy. The technician comes in, young and pretty and probably not earning much above minimum wage. Her manicure and her aura of boredom don't make me any more at case. She has a form on a clipboard.

"When was your last period?" she asks.

"I'm a preoperative transsexual," I explain.

"Have you ever given birth?" she asks. A sense of surreal amazement hits me. Didn't she bear me?

"No," I assure her.

"Sorry," she says, "I've got to ask these questions. Are you taking any hormones?"

"Seven point five milligrams of Premarin daily," I respond. That's enough for a small mare. She doesn't know that, but she dutifully writes the dosage down and grinds on.

"Have you had a hysterectomy?"

"No." I answer mechanically. I think we're both in shock now.

"One more question. Do you have breast implants?"

"I hope not," I say quietly.

She smiles reassuringly, and the ice cracks a little. We make eye contact for the first time. Soon we're looking at pretty blue and white pictures of me. She holds them out to look at. I'm tense, I don't know if I want to bear, I don't know if she'll tell me or not. She doesn't look so young now. She's given the news to women before.

Me radiologist has to look at these, but they look normal," she says, smiling. My anxiety drains away slowly, as her words sinks in. I smile back, our eyes meet, and we share a moment of sisterhood. I thank her, get dressed, and walk out, one of fifteen relieved women she'll see that day.

* * *

The problem with transsexual women is not that we are trapped in the wrong bodies. The truth is that is a fairly trivial affair corrected with doctors and sharp scalpels. The problem is that we are trapped in a society that alternates between hating and ignoring or tolerating and exploiting us and our experience, and more importantly, we are trapped in the wrong minds. We have, too many of us for too long, been trapped in too much self-hate: the hate reflected back at us by others who, unwilling to look at the complexity of our lives, dismiss our femaleness, our femininity, and our sense of gender itself and our erotic choices as merely imitative or simply derivative.

* * *

As a kid, I seemed to have had the opinion that it was a matter of personal preference which of the sex roles you chose to live. It wasn't until the day that I found a new patch of pubic hair starting to sprout that I really realized that I was stuck with what I had, and that I really, really didn't want it or the role playing that went with it. This is when the monster first emerged. My parents tell me that I was a saintly little kid, and that the onset of puberty replaced their little saint with a big monster. They didn't know the half of it. The monster was between my legs, and it was hard all the time. The monster was the hormones coursing through my blood, making almost every inch of me feel wrong, and which made physical contact almost hurt. The monster was what all of this did to me. I couldn't think straight for even five or ten minutes. All of a sudden I realized why all the other dickbearers were chasing after the girls, because something very ugly inside of me was telling me to do the same, and I hated it. I hated myself, and I hated what I was becoming even more. People started using the term "man" to describe me, which made my stomach chum.

The day I got approval to start taking female hormones, I was so happy I could barely contain myself. The combination of the hormones and fasting to lose some weight pretty much threw me for a loop, both physically and emotionally. The really wonderful, wonderful part of it was my very first day without the monster acting up even once. Then, the first week, then almost a whole month without a single erection. This was about the most wonderful thing that could have happened to me, short of immediate surgery.

* * *

When I was 14, my stepfather decided to make a "man" of me, and took me to a doctor who began giving me male hormones. I didn't know why I was being given these pills. I didn't even know what they were, but as a result my muscles grew, my voice deepened, and my fare and body became covered with hair. However, the more masculine I became, the more out of balance I felt. By the time I was 17, 1 was very lost, and my stepfather knew it. He told me I had to join the Army, and that would make a man of me. So, in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, I went into the service. While in Vietnam, the burden of my gender conflict got too heavy to carry, and I tried to commit suicide. In the process of Vying to end my life, I took a tremendous risk and ended up saving six of my fellow soldiers. I was honored with a Silver Star for my bravery.

* * *

When I awoke I first saw Little Pepina, Sheila's clown doll, smiling down on me from the window. She was surrounded by the Tiffany Club's beautiful red roses, Kerri's delicate pink tea rose, Ellen's begonias, and my coffee mug that said, "It's official-I've become my mother." I smiled, then noticed that my body was trussed up in an entangled web of tubes and needles and catheters and IVs. Above me was a big beautiful yellow victory ribbon that Nancy had tied to my IV stand. The room was filled with smiling people, and the most beautiful smile of all was Rena's, as she stood beside me, still in her native dress, ready to do the second half of her sacred blessing. I reached down and felt clean and smooth, and said to myself, "Yeah!"

* * *

What I am, as a transsexual woman, is simply a woman with a genetic birth defect, one I often refer to as ICD--infant chromosomal-sex disorder. This does not make my life experience any more or less female than anyone else's. Nor does my being forced to live as a male for 20-some years. "Female" happens in your bead: it's not about sex organs, body hair, or chromosomes. Anyone who has talked for five minutes with a transsexual instantly knows this to be true. "Male" or "Female" is something you're born with, either you have it or you don't. Can't be given, can't be voted, can't be taken away. Sex changes, surgery, and hormones don't increase them, any more than their absence decreases them: all they do is make the outside agree a little bit better with the inside. The reason all of my life experience is female, is simply because it happened to me.

* * *

From the journal of Filisa Vistima, a preoperative transsexual.

3 November 1992-I wanted to do so many things. I wanted to help people. I had recently thought I could become a role model for girls who want to become a mathematician or a scientist I wanted to experience so many more things; I wanted to accomplish so many more things. It is so hard to accept that I have no place in this world.

5 January 1992-I am encountering many old desires of mine, e.g. swimming. By the comments Jane has mentioned to me ("Your hands are large," "You're shaped like a boy," and so forth), I have been self-conscious. I wish I were anatomically "normal" so I could go swimming. If I were "normal" I would no longer have any reason to hide behind my clothes other than to hide my modesty. I could go swimming without clothes-I would love to do that so much!! But no, I’m a mutant, Frankenstein's monster. Now I am feeling the same feeling I had some days ago, the feeling that I hate myself, the physical self. I remember having these feelings when I was a child, hitting my thighs with my hands so I would cry. I'm crying now....

5 February 1993-Outside is boring. Grey concrete, grey asphalt roads, grey building" it is a visually deficient landscape.... Maybe in this life I was not destined to live long. I am too different. I cannot adapt. I have no future. What is keeping me from killing myself? My relations with people have grown so distant. No one who I care about will miss me; no one loves me. How can I continue to live based on the assumption that I Will someday contribute to this society. I should have the right to be selfish. My grief and unhappiness have been too great. I probably was supposed to kill myself when I was 16. Do I not have the right to decide when my suffering is too great?

Filisa killed herself on March 6, 1993.

* * *

We, whose lives have been saved because we were fortunate enough to obtain surgery, have a sacred duty to do all that we can to save the lives of other young women like us. Filisa was young enough to be my daughter, the child that I never had. At her age, unable to believe I could ever accomplish anything, I chose to perform surgery on myself and nearly bled to death in the process. How many of us have actually. bled to death or died from infection or, like Filisa, been killed by the accumulated cruelties-because we who should know better don't care enough to help, or because of others' acquiescence in our oppression, or their downright persecution?

Filisa's body is being buried under the male name she rejected. It would have been a simple enough thing to help her change at least her name while she was alive. But we don't deserve even that comfort.

* * *

Sex-reassignment surgery was the most important goal in my life, and I damn well wanted to spend the rest of my life living as a woman, but deep down in my heart of hearts, I just knew that I wasn't a real transsexual. I knew that because I felt that having to actually wear women's clothing was a big pain in the ass, because I never wanted to wear dresses as a child, and because the thought of sex-reassignment surgery never quite occurred to me until my teens [all violating medical establishment criteria for being transsexual]. Never mind that the main reason that the thought hadn't occurred to me was that I didn't know it was possible. Never mind that in most of my dreams, I was either female or being converted to one. Never mind that I never felt comfortable as a male. Deep down, I had this awful feeling that I was a fake. I might add that one of the all-time gender expert shrinks in the Denver area told me that having sex reassignment surgery was a certain path to ruination and a lifetime of psychological misery. Several years after surgery, I hadn't found myself embroiled in that post-surgical lifetime of psychological misery; I just took it as one more bit of evidence that I wasn't a real transsexual.

* * *

I saw someone the other day. We recognized each other instantly, those around were none the wiser. Guarded and open, we slowed to a stop as we reached each other.

"Hi, how're you doing?" I said.

"Pretty good," she said.

"You look good."

"Thanks."

Pause.

"See ya later."

"Ya take care"

To look good, to pass, means everything and it means survival. It means you can walk down the street and not get rocks or words thrown at you or someone's mouth.

* * *

When I entered my real-life test back in October '82 1 knew I'd never be considered attractive or feminine appearing according to the prevailing standards of the dominant culture. At best I hoped to pass as female out at the 6-sigma realm of the normal distribution of feminine-defined attributes. After all, there was very little I could do to alter the damage done by 28 years of testosterone; larger than normal hands and feet, broad shoulders, deep voice, early stages of masculine balding, scarring from 10 months of intensive facial electrolysis, and most debilitating-a negative self-esteem and body image. Any few of these attributes can be found among some samples of the female population but it'd be extremely rare that so many of them would manifest at once in one sample, unless that sample had been born in a male's body.

I figured it was worth the risk cuz I didn't have much to lose; I was headed toward suicide and either sex-reassignment would help me turn my fife around or it wouldn't. I decided I wouldn't run from other people's negative reactions to me and I'd try not to engage with them on their level of fear or ignorance, either. I would just be there and try to maintain that I was living life the best I knew how in that moment.

* * *

What did I do? Why is today so different from all the other days? I'm being a good girl, and I didn't even get my dress dirty at recess. Why is everyone yelling and talking so loud? I don't understand. Why do they keep looking and talking about me? I heard Miss Lamb tell someone that I was not using my name. That's silly, everyone knows my name is Jeanne. Why do grown-ups want to hurt me so bad? Why does that man look so angry? Why are they pulling my arm? It hurts. I'm so scared. Where are Judy and Annie?

It was September 1949 and I had just started the second grade. These things happened 44 years ago, but they are burned inside of me as though they had just happened.

Aunt Sissy told me that we had to play a game, and she dressed me up like Raggedy Andy. I hated it. The pants scratch me, and the shoes are clunky and so heavy, and they cut my hair and I cried. Mrs. Simms next door always liked my hair. It fell in loose curls almost to the middle of my back. When Aunt Sissy would brush it, it would shine and look and feel so good. She would brush and brush and talk real quiet so I can just barely hear her. She tells me I am her little girl and that she loves me. I love to have my hair brushed.

Why are they calling me Wayne? Who is that? I'm not Wayne, I'm Jeanne. Why do I have to wear these clothes? I miss my pink dress with the flowers on it and it has such a pretty ribbon that goes around it. If I'M really good and promise not to get them dirty, mother would let me wear my white Mary Janes. They were so special, and I got to wear my white socks that fold down with them. I felt so pretty. But no more. Everyone is angry and they're making me do all of these horrible things and I don't understand.

Why won't my friends play with me anymore? What did I do? I wanted to play with them, but their mommy and daddy wouldn't let me, and they would yell at me and tell me to go home.

Nothing makes any sense at all. The things that I really enjoyed before I wasn't allowed to do anymore. I didn't like this Wayne person. When is this game going to end? Why do I have to do this? This hurts so bad. Then Uncle Bob is going to teach me how to be a boy. Why do I want to be a boy? I'm a girl. I know I'm a different kind of girl, but there must be different kinds of girls because Annie and Alberta are smooth and so pretty at their wee-wee spot and I have this stick out part, but I'm a girl and they are too, so there just has to be different kinds of girls.

Now I go to a different school, not with my friends. This lady at school always checks to see what I'm wearing and writes something down in her book. Sometimes she comes to the house. I think people are afraid of her. I don't like it when she touches me. And she always wants to see my panties. But these aren't like my other panties. I guess they aren't bad, but I liked the old kind better.

When I came home from sex-reassignment surgery, I stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror. I too was finally smooth like my young first-grade playmates, and I at last belonged. I was finally in step with myself and didn't hate myself. I began to feel that I do have a purpose here to help others, that I am capable of loving and being loved, that people can like me just for being me, that I am all right, I do fit in, I'm no longer an outcast from humanity. My body is in synch with my mind, and that is what matters.

* * *

Often women I get involved with have problems with the idea of having a relationship with a woman who hasn't had the experience of being a woman all her life. I have a pat answer that I sometimes use: "I've been a woman all my life, but I just happen to have had to spend a major part of it in another body," the same body, but a male body. There is truth in this, Of course, but it is also true that I did not grow up with the experiences of most women, just as I didn't grow up with the experiences of most men. But then, who has?

* * *

For me, my liberation began when I recognized the most basic fact about my life, that I am a woman. I am not a sick man, a deluded man, a castrated man, a Man who wants to be a woman, or any other kind of man. I am a woman. The change that I made happen 22 years ago was not a change from one sex to another, but rather a change from denial and hiding to a life of openness and joy.

There can be few rights more central to a person's life than the right of self-definition. From my point of view, people can think what they want privately, but when they try to argue with my identity as a matter of public policy or doctrine, then we have trouble. I know of situations where this has happened. Some years ago I was teaching a week-long workshop in a women's school in the Danish countryside. During the week one of the women told me of an incident that had taken place in the women's camp set up every summer on an island near Copenhagen. It was discovered that one of the campers was transsexual. Rather than having security guards throw her out at 1:00 in the morning, they decided to hold a meeting. After a heated discussion, they took a vote on whether or not she was a woman, with the decision going against the transsexual woman, who then bad to leave. Apparently, the clinching argument ran something like, "People should not try to change the way God made them." The woman who told me this story expressed astonishment that lesbians should make such an argument. I pointed out that even more astonishing was the idea that this woman's identity should be a question of democratic decision.

If anyone should doubt who is the oppressor and who the oppressed in the conflict between transsexual women and "separatists" who object to them, if anyone should question who has privilege, they need only look at this disparity. When transsexual women seek to attend women's events, who is it that gets to decide?

* * *

Virtually every psychiatrist I ever saw asked me, "Don't you want your feelings of being a woman to go away?' I thought this was an astoundingly stupid question, yet I was asked it in all seriousness. My answer was that my sexual identity was such an integral part of my being that I felt that it was impossible to remove it without also removing my soul. My answer, therefore, was no, I didn't want to lose these feelings because along with them I'd also lose all traces of what I called "me."

* * *

I'm remembering being in that final, pre-surgical meeting at the Cleveland Clinic, sitting in tears surrounded by about eight doctors and a dozen perky young nurses, trying desperately to convince these sodden bastards that yes I am a transsexual and yes I want them to make sure I have a functioning clit when they're done carving up my groin like a Thanksgiving turkey because yes I do still get hot for women and I look forward to them going down on me and one doctor has asked me with barely suppressed disgust how I would feel if I couldn't have an orgasm (and how would you feel if your sorry-assed weenie-roasted limp dick couldn't have an orgasm?) and another has pointed to his impossibly feminine, delicate WASP nurse explaining patiently that I understand of course I won't come out looking like her. I am thinking of all the women telling me that I can never be a real woman, presumably like them. Phrases like "Women born women only," "Biological women only," "Genetic women only" and "No dogs allowed" or whatever exclusionary formula is in vogue with our very best lesbian thinkers this year start tumbling over and over each other in my head like a bunch of manic puppies ... The anger and tears rise in my throat with the bitterness of bile and stick there like some kind of demonic fish bone....

* * *

There are those who have suggested that I'm a bit well, masculine in a few ways. I guess I'm used to that, because back when people thought I was male, they also thought I was too effeminate. I think the world just doesn't have enough labels, because I probably hang out somewhere in between on the spectrum. Truth is that I probably always will. I mean, I prefer to live as a woman, but my me-ness will probably always strike people as mid scale--full-blown androgynous.

I suppose I could be upset about that, and as a matter of fact, I did spend a fair amount of time being upset. And I did what a lot of transsexuals do when they're trying to hide their male upbringing: I tried to deny, lose, ignore, suppress all those qualities that I thought were "male," and in the process, a lot of skills I acquired when people thought I was a male. Even worse yet, that meant tying to deny, lose, ignore, and suppress a lot of what I'd call "me." All the while, my female friends were asking me why I was trying so hard to lose what they were trying to learn, and why I was trying so hard to learn what they were trying to lose.

* * *

When I was going through the core of my change process (starting hormone therapy, coming Out to my friends, beginning to live full-time as a woman, getting a job, and finally the sex-reassignment surgery), one of my most supportive friends was a female-to-male transsexual I met in a group therapy session. Jeffrey was a wonderful, caring person, and one of the most creative I've ever met: musician, painter, sculptor, poet, horse trainer, and astrology devotee. We lived some distance apart, so we didn't get together often, but we had long telephone conversations. In the years I knew Jeffrey, we compared notes on the change process; he took me riding on his horse, and gave me apples to feed him (the horse); he introduced me to his polio-stricken aunt, with whom be lived and whom he helped take care of; he introduced me to his three great big dogs and his dozen or so cats; he played me his demo tapes, including his own compositions-, be showed me his paintings and sculpture and all the books he got his inspiration from; he gave me jewelry on my birthdays (twice), candy most other times I saw him; and he spent hours working up a complex horoscope for me, and even though I don't believe at all in astrology, I listened attentively and respectfully to him because it seemed that if anyone could tease Truth from the stars, it would be Jeffrey.

Unfortunately, in 1988, right about the time I had my surgery, Jeffrey found out that the testosterone treatments were destroying his liver. He had the choice of death or regression. This, after undergoing painful surgery to remove breasts. Jeffrey did the only possible thing-turned back into Kathy. But she didn't want me to see her as Kathy, so we never met again. She was very, very depressed whenever we talked. I never got to see Jeffrey perform on stage. And I never got to give him a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, that I had bought for a birthday present for him. I still have it, somewhere. Sometime in 1989, 1 called and got an answering machine that belonged to someone else--my friend had moved and not told me. Jeffrey had always wanted to move to London for the music scene, so I like to think he's there now. My strong suspicion, though, is that my friend's body lies in the ground somewhere, unattended and forgotten by all but a few family members.

* * *

Everyone and everything kept pushing me to be male. Be a man, come on, just do it. Those sentiments meant absolutely nothing to me. I was so completely normal as a female that not only did I not want this man thing, I was repulsed by it. I was introduced to the wonderful world of womanhood at an early age by my stepfather, who raped me, saying, 'Now we'll see if you still want to be a girl so bad."

* * *

In my preschool years and early grade school, I was just as comfortable with playing house and dolls with the other girls as I was with hanging around with the boys. I confess that I never did get the hang of or interest for most boys' games, such as playing war or getting into fights or playing sports. For that matter, I also have to confess that I was quite confused over the strict delineation of the two roles. I really couldn't understand why I wasn't supposed to play with dolls unless it had an overt killing theme, such as GI Joe, and I did feel somewhat alienated by the fact that all the approved "boy" activities seemed to involve inflicting pain, or at least pretending to inflict pain.

* * *

I remember a non-transsexual woman, who was goodhearted and friendly, telling me once that I did, in fact, sound like a man. I recall thinking that I always seem to get caught up in discussions whose categories by definition exclude me: There are people who sound like men and people who sound like women, and I had to belong to one category or the other. I thought about this for a moment and told her, 'No, I don't sound like a man. I sound just and exactly like a transsexual woman. I know I sound like a transsexual woman, because I am one, and this is what we sound like." By allowing non-transsexuals to set the terms of these discussions, we place ourselves in situations within which no sane or self-affirming outcomes are possible, even though we know it to be beyond dispute that non-transsexuals, including not only lesbian feminists but the medical establishment who treat us, don't have the first clue as to what our transsexuality is about, any more than I as a white person understand being black.

* * *

The inevitable question I'd get from men was, "What kind of man would want to have his penis cut off?" The natural answer to that question is, "None. By definition, either he is not in his right mind, or she is not a man."

* * *

So, how do I feel? I just underwent a complete sexual metamorphosis ... perhaps one of the most dramatic and drastic changes in the human experience. It's done! Complete! So, bow do I feel? To be perfectly honest I don't feel any different. In fact I don't feel as though I've changed anything at all. From the age of four until the age of 32, 1 struggled with the reality of my soul, and searched for my place in the world. Seventeen years ago I accepted the reality of my soul, and since that time I have been building my place in the world and preparing for my transition. Well, my transition has finally occurred and all I can say is "Phew!" However, there is one small thing I feel now that I've never felt before. Since the age of four, my mind and heart have told me I was female. My image in the mirror and my birth certificate didn't agree. Now my legal documentation and my body agree with my soul, and for the first time in my life I feel...peace.

* * *

There are some up sides to being transsexual. For starters, I look around and see a lot of women spending good time and money on learning skills that I got free. Let's face it, being born with a dick does come with its privileges, one of which is basic life skills that for some reason just aren't taught to girls. Excuse the gender politics here, but a lot of those life skills have a lot to do with living in a male-dominated society. Like it or not, understanding the dynamics of male-dominated societies is certainly an asset on your ledger of survival skills.

Here's a partial list of goodies I got all because people used to think I was a guy. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gotten these otherwise:

• I know, in general, how male politics work. Big plus in the workplace.

• I was expected and encouraged to do well in math and the sciences, which is in stark contrast to the expectations and encouragements that were aimed at my sister.

• I was taught to be comfortable with machinery and electronics in general. This was also true for both brothers but not my sister.

• I got to start on my career track getting paid full parity, where congruent females were looking at pay scales that ran about 63 cents on the dollar.

Those are pretty nice things I got from my upbringing and my (fortunately stunted) life as a bogus male. A lot of women I know really wish they had those skills. Now that I have them, I definitely don't want to lose them. There isn't a week that goes by that someone doesn't ask me for help with something that's directly attributable to my having been raised as a male. As sad as it sounds, a lot of those things just weren't provided for my sister, and from the looks of it, that's a pretty common condition, because a lot of the time, it's a woman who is asking me for help.

* * *

Twenty-two naked female bodies, my own included, soaked and splashed and laughed in the hot tub, courting hyperthermia. Women with breasts big and small, skin white and tanned; stomachs flat and paunchy, inclined against the side of the tub, discussing their love lives, their careers, and especially the varied and many paths which had led them to the blood ritual which linked 21 of them, and which had finally brought them here, to this seaside retreat, this weekend in early September.

In all-important ways, the 21 were like any other group of socially and politically aware women. The only clue to their commonality, the incredible thing which they had shared, was their voices, which were on the average somewhat lower in pitch than those of other women. Their bodies, their names, their accomplishments, their problems, were indistinguishable from the twenty second, the lucky one. She was lucky, because she came about her womanhood by birthright, growing into it logically and naturally, with support of friends and family. The 21 had not had that advantage. They had acquired their womanhood in the face of great adversity, loss, pain, and expense, dedicating years and sometimes decades to the pursuit. And yet they too were lucky ones, for they had reached their goal, had shared the blood ritual, had grown in spirit and personhood because of the adversity. There were too, too many who had not and never would. On Friday night, sitting in a circle, each of the 21 blew out a candle for those who hadn't been so fortunate, who had fallen by the wayside, victims of suicide, of murder, of car accident, of cancer, who had not made it to and through the blood ritual. And then each lit a candle for someone who was just starting out or for someone who had become lost on what has to be one of the most difficult paths for a human being to walk. The room, which had gradually fallen into darkness and sadness, once again began to lighten as the flames bravely, hopefully, began to burn.

Contributors

Anne, Cailin, Dallas, Dawn, Davina, Filisa, Margaret, Margo, Merissa, Michelle, Nancy, Rachel, Rena, Riki Anne, Wendi. Some material excerpted from previously published articles in Fireweed, Gay Community News, San Francisco Bay Times, and Tapestry.

I could not ask a transsexual for anything more inconceivable than to forgo passing, to be consciously "read " to read oneself aloud---and by this troubling and productive reading, to begin to write oneself into the discourses by which one has been written.... -Sandy Stone

Thanks and Disclaimers

With special thanks to Janis Walworth for having compiled this creation.  While Janis is not transgendered, she has probably been more instrumental in demonstrating for the rights and respect of transgendered individuals that anyone else I've ever met (including all the transgendered folk I've come across).  She teaches all an important lesson, that oppression can come from all quarters, and that the only truly unsuccessful way of dealing with it is silence.

This was scanned and OCRed from the original handout presented several years ago by Janis at the Michigan Women's Music Festival.  Please excuse any errors you may find.   They are due to inaccuracies in the OCR process, and ineptitude in my operating the spell checker.  At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!