While I was in the hospital, my mom brought me a little care package. It had a stuffed bear, a silly coloring book, and a copy of Glamour.
The stuffed bear lived next to me on my bed. The coloring book was, well, colored in. And the Glamour was put into my bag of things, hidden away from sight.
It’s not because I didn’t want to know about “25 Times I’m Irresistible to Him (And Don’t Even Know It).” Or “My Top 10 Tricks for Sexy Hair!” Or even “59 Cute, Casual Outfits That Look Good On Everyone.” I mean, who wouldn’t want to know all those things?
It was because I wasn’t sure if I would be looked down upon for reading it.
Would the nurses think I was immature? Would my friends think I was silly? Would my visitors think I was….girlie?
Tonight is my last night at the hospital. (Fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc.) The gallbladder was removed last night, along with the bazillion more gallstones it contained. My parents actually claim the doctor said my gallbladder had 100 more gallstones, which is disgusting if it’s true.
This morning, after lugging myself to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror to see something of a stranger. First, because one of my roommates had put my hair into two braided pigtails last night, before I went into surgery. I’ve been way to lazy to remove ‘em, so they’ve stayed the last 24 hours. Second, because the IV fluids, coupled with little food, have given me a simultaneously gaunt and water-bloated look. On top of that, I haven’t really bathed all week, so my color is way off and I’m all blotchy.
Most obnoxious, though, was the little soul-patch beneath my lower lip, a remnant of my facial hair that the laser removal hasn’t been able extinguish.
Maddie at xoros.net recently wrote a post, Passing Fallacy, on the idea of passing. That is, being perceived as the gender you are presenting as, rather than your assigned-at-birth gender. I really like where she takes her definition, though:
[passing] is a struggle to over ride what others impose and imprint on you in order to win the right to assert one’s self image, one’s self. It’s trying to win the right not to be made to feel like a failure, an othered, degendered oddity. It is trying to be “convincing” enough (read – meet enough of their stereotypes) that people are prepared to accept what you say. Rather than just listening to what you say.
That idea, of passing being an issue of whose reality ‘wins,’ is the main reason I try to say “perceived as a woman” rather than “passing as a woman.” Because it turns around passing and makes it about what it really is: a problem created by the gaze-er, not the gaze-ee.
EDIT: Forgot to put a title to the post! Now corrected.
The advanced high school class at work is going to be in a performance this spring. (Not the class I’m teaching – the class at my full-time job. The class I’m teaching will also be in a performance this spring, but that’s not relevant to this post.) We’re buying costumes for them, but need everyone’s measurements before we can do that.
Since I was in the office during their class, I walked down the hall to ask for the measurements of the one girl who still hadn’t turned her’s in. I handed her a tape measure, but she turned and said, “Aren’t you going to measure me?”
Recently, a friend of mine mentioned that she was impressed of my ‘out-ness.’ My pride in my trans identity. My willingness to share myself with the world, on this blog and through performance.
It was already kind of an emotional conversation, so it was only a slight surprise to me when tears started down my face, as I replied, “Do you really think I have a choice about being out?”
I thought you all might enjoy a few clips from my recent solo performance, Trans Form. This is two pieces, from separate parts of the show, that deal with The Little Mermaid and the idea of Ariel passing.
A lot of the material from this video came from this post. I’m still working on getting the rest of the video in some semblance of order… Would people be interested in seeing the whole thing (I’d need to break it up) or is a ‘best of’ clip video acceptable?
I don’t do it as often anymore, but I used to have conversations in my head between myself and Rebecca, who was not yet “myself.”
My conversations would usually start when I was feeling particularly stupid, or sad, or masculine. She’d start, this Rebecca that I imagined myself as in some alternate universe, speaking to me across the barrier which separated our realities: “You’re never going to be happy if you keep on like this.”
The section was well-received at the work-in-progress showing, but I realized that the audience was watching a very different scene than I thought I was portraying. The response I got from the friends who were at the showing was, “There’s a great dramatic irony to that scene, because obviously Rebecca ‘wins.’ You did transition, and you’re no longer who you were.”
But my emotional connection with the scene is very different.
In line with my previous, super positive and up-beat post, I’ve been thinking more about why I have this horrible block on viewing myself, or anything I do, in a positive light.
I know that a lot of it stems from regret and self-loathing at having waited to long to transition. I’ve mentioned how “Rebecca” used to yell at male-me to get off my/his ass and do something about being trans other than mope. But it never really worked. I have a chunk of that in the show I’m working on, and it’s sort of ridiculous – I’m playing myself (Rebecca) telling myself (16-year-old-male-me) that if I/he only took some action he’d “get to be me!” The dramatic irony is obviously that I do end up as Rebecca.
Except I’m realizing that I feel like the transition has gotten ahead of me. That, for so long, it was this secret thing that I didn’t talk about except in very private situations. The fantasized and idealized possibility of actually transitioning seemed totally out of reach. Even if I did transition, so I thought, I would never end up pretty or successful.
People tell me I’m both of those things. Objectively, I’m forced to acknowledge the second is true, even if it doesn’t feel like it, but sure as hell not the first.
I haven’t had a chance to catch up with the transition, to internalize and think of myself in the way everyone else seems to. I’m not sure how… I still feel like I’m playing pretend, putting on a costume. I’ve been bemused recently by the women in my life – coworkers, my roommate, friends – who feel comfortable sharing information about their periods with me in a way that they never would have a few years ago. They obviously see me as a woman. Why can’t I?
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