I just finished reading She’s Not the Man I Married, by Helen Boyd (who blogs at en|Gender). It’s sort of a thinking-out-loud kind of book – it’s not quite a memoir, not quite a book on theory, not quite a manifesto, but with tastes of all of those things, and more. It’s written by the partner of someone who identifies as trans (not transgender or transsexual or transvestite, but specifically trans, which I kind of love) and explores how the author has dealt with that and the conclusions she has come to. I really enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to making G read it and getting her thoughts on Boyd’s experiences. Obviously, just as no two trans  individuals have the exact same experiences, no two partners of trans individuals would, either. But Boyd is one of the few voices (the only voice?) of trans partners, so I’ll take what I can get. (It also helps that she’s a good writer.)

One of the common refrains throughout the book (paraphrased) “I don’t understand it [being transsexual] but I accept it.” For exapmle, from page 243: “Like a lot of feminists, I’m generally suspicious of what people mean when they say they have ‘a woman’s brain’ or ‘feel like a woman,’ but transsexual people are content after they transition, feel they’ve fixed something, and while I’ll never understand it, I’ve met too many people now who have given up too much to transition to doubt what is going on is legitimate.” I have a huge amount of respect from anyone else who is able to see something outside their own personal experience of the world and not say “No, no one can feel that way because I don’t feel that way.”

That said, one passage from close to the end of the book jumped out at me and I did want to ruminate on it.. From page 251:

The feeling that I am supportive of Betty’s transness only for the sake of the man I met creeps up on my now and again. Betty worries that out of love for him I “put up” with her. If she gets to the point where she has no male left for me to connect t, there is a chance I will wake up one day and realize I am not in love with and feel no loyalty toward her. This is why when a trans person uses that “but I’m the same person” argument, I want to say, “Well, I sure as hell hope not,” because we had better not be dealing with all this crap without its effecting any real change. That’s the point, that the trans person’s change will be enough to make living in the world easier and more comfortable for him, whether that’s done through crossdressing or transition.

In an earlier post, where I mulled over the origins of ‘self’, I mentioned a Boylan quote that I think is also relevant here:

Above all, I wanted my friends and family to know that Jenny was not a stranger, that she was someone they already knew. It was a puzzle, though – if Jenny was so very much like James, didn’t that mean she was not really female? And if she really was female, didn’t that mean that she was someone unknown? That I could be both unambiguously female and, at the same time, the person they had always known seemed impossible. Yet, it was an impossibility that was largely true.

I guess I agree with Boylan and Boyd, even though the two quotes seem express somewhat mutually exclusive viewpoints. That is,  I agree that second-wave feminism was on to something with the ‘radical’ idea that an individual’s personality/worth existed above and beyond gender. (At least, that’s my understanding of a primary tenant of second-wave feminism and why it’s what people most commonly think of when they’re imagining ‘man-hating feminism’: second-wave feminism was of the bra-burning ideology.) (And it’s at this point I wish this blog could do easy footnotes…I’m such an academic geek.) And, in that respect, I side with Boylan: I’m transitioning to ‘become’ female, even though though the ‘core’ of who I am isn’t going to change: my sense of humor, political ideology, interests, friends, etc, etc, etc, won’t change. (I know I’m sidestepping the problematic use of the words ‘become’ and ‘core’ with air-quotes…they’re not strictly relevant to the point I’m trying to make and I’ll be happy to chase my tail trying to nail down better words some other time.) But I also agree with Boyd that the whole damn point of this endeavor – hormones, therapy, hair removal, figuring out how the hell to use makeup, buying a whole new wardrobe, etc, etc, etc, – is to present myself as, interact with the world as, and (most important to me) think of myself as a woman. That is, I wouldn’t be doing this if I wanted to come out the other side (no pun intended) the exact same person as I started.

As always, navigating the middle ground is difficult. I obviously disagree (well, I hope it’s “obviously”) that “biology is destiny,” that we’re “only” our sex or our gender, that men and women are “fundamentally” and/or “irreconcilably” different, all of that bullshit. But I’m also compelled to disagree with the concept that gender/sex/whatever-you-want-to-call-it isn’t important or a major factor in some (I won’t say ‘all’) people’s personalities and/or views of themselves. Now, I don’t think this is actually what Boylan (or Boyd) is saying: I’m taking each of their views to a ridiculous and unreasonable extreme to make a point.

But it’s difficult to meld Boylan and Boyd’s perspectives and say, “I’m transitioning to change something fundamental about myself. But don’t worry – nothing fundamental will change.” And, in the end, that is how I feel. I want to reassure the people who love me that I’ll still be the same person after all this time and energy and money and and tears and sleepless nights; that they won’t lose the ‘me’ that they love. But I also want to reassure myself that the whole point of transition is to make a transition. That is, literally, to move from one place to another.

Hopefully, I’ll get there in one piece.

-R