OCCUPY WALL STREET

All enter, chanting, Rebecca leading call-and-response. Chants include:

• Tell me what democracy looks like / This is what democracy looks like
• The people united will never be defeated
• The whole world is watching

Everyone but Rebecca fades off to the sides

I’ve been following the Occupy Wall Street movement with some interest. I have friends who live in New York City who are pretty involved. I have friends in Chicago who are regularly across from the Federal Reserve Building at Jackson and LaSalle, as part of Occupy Chicago. And I love the concept of the Occupy movement: of grassroots democracy, of consensus building, of acknowledging the wealth and income disparities which have been growing in the United States for years.

Chanting, alone: We are the ninety nine percent!

Sort of embarrassed at being alone: It’s easy to justify not being an active participant, to justify watching from the sidelines. I’m busy. What does one do at an occupation, hour after hour? And – as the Occupy movement continues into the winter – the ever-dropping temperatures and ever-growing threat of cold rain and snow.

And always in the back of my mind, the question: As a queer, transgender woman, what’s my place in the Occupy movement? Where do I fit in the ninety nine percent?

In some ways, the Occupy Movement makes me think of the uproar surrounding invasive screenings by the TSA at airports:

Brief scene of Rebecca being stopped by an embarrassed worker – “The scanner showed an…um…anomoly around..um…” (gestures to crotch) – while everyone else walks by without incident

Minorities – transgender people, the disabled population, women wearing burkas, anyone who looks too ‘ethnic’ – have been getting singled out by security for years. The TSA specifically put out a notice to be on the lookout for people whose documentation didn’t match their ‘perceived gender.’ Sure, it could pick up those rascally cross-dressing terrorists, but it was more likely to impact people like me.

But when invasive screenings began to impact straight, white, able-bodied men, suddenly there was cause for concern. There were extensive news reports and investigative stories. There were congressional hearings.

Where was my congressional hearing?

Back at the Occupy movement, the mainstream financial and employment sectors have always been targeting minorities for discriminatory treatment. A disproportionate number of transgender women turn to sex work because we aren’t seen as fit to employ.

And yet, I can’t help but feel giddy at the Occupy movement: people taking to the street, making their voices heard to authority, calling out the injustices built into the very foundation of the American economy. How could that not be exciting? And from people my age! And younger! A population seen as apathetic, on FaceBook instead of making face-to-face connections, too lazy to be activists.

Everyone comes back for more OWS chanting. Everyone but Rebecca leaves through the main entrance.

The Occupy movement has reminded me what it means to work within a system, versus protesting it entirely. I’m hoping Occupy figures out how to balance those extremes, and that it finds a way to turn general sentiments of dissatisfaction into lasting political change. At the same time, the tools The System gives us aren’t always that useful.

PASSPORT OFFICE

I’m currently trying to get a new passport. My old one, which I received in 2007, has my old name, a really old photo, and says – in big bold letters – MALE. But under the Obama Administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it’s become (relatively) easy to get a new, corrected passport. You need court documentation of the name change (check) and a letter from a doctor saying you’ve met certain criteria (easily acquired). So I put everything together – my old passport, my name change documentation, the letter from my doctor, and the passport application itself – and sent it off to the passport office in New Hampshire.

Things are never that easy.

A week or so after sending my application, I received a letter from the passport office.

Read the letter. Well, part of the letter. Mostly just the ‘physician’s statement must include’ part.

Except I knew all that going in. I’ve seen the letter my doctor wrote – it has all that stuff!

So I called the passport office, assuming (foolishly) that this would be easy to clear up. They need certain things, I sent those things. Simple. Of course not.

The people you can reach by phone don’t have any additional information beyond what’s included in the letter – that I didn’t supply everything I needed to in my application – and the people who have the information I want can’t be reached by phone. So I ask the office to have someone knowledgeable call me. Can do! But if I miss the call, or they call while I’m in rehearsal or at a meeting and my phone is on silent (which they’ve done twice so far) they won’t leave a voicemail. Privacy concerns, presumably, but who knows. So I need to call back and start the whole process over. The fun part being that, for those same privacy concerns, they can’t acknowledge the letter I’ve been sent and jump into the conversation. To have a conversation about it, I have to read it to them. In its entirety.

To give credit where credit is due, everyone I’ve spoken to has been very polite and professional. I don’t think I’m being singled out because I’m transgender, I think bureaucracy is an equal-opportunity spreader of misery. But why do I need a doctor’s note in the first place? I wouldn’t need one simply to change my name. But gender is dangerous and terrifying and society must be protected from those crazy gender-shifting freaks.

GETTING FIRED

A little over a year ago, in October 2010, I was fired for being trans. For being a transgender woman. Transsexual. A she-male. A chick with a dick, as it were. Dangerous, apparently, to children. Bringer of “uncomfortable conversation.”

I had been hired to teach a once-a-week theatre workshop, but after the first class I got word that I was being asked not to return after some of the kids at Neal had asked their teachers about my “big hands” and “deep voice.”

In telling this story, this is the part where everyone tries to sneak a look at my hands to see if they’re freakishly huge or something. They’re not, as far as I can tell. (Show the audience)

But the teachers had gone to the administrators with the students’ questions about me. The administrators had decided my presence might bring up “uncomfortable conversation.” (That’s the actual quote, I’m told.) The school asked the Piven Theatre Workshop, who was my direct employer, to send another teacher. So Piven was tasked with the unpleasant responsibility of telling me I had been fired, because I was transgender. Because I wasn’t “womanly” enough. Because my very presence in a classroom would apparently prompt “uncomfortable conversation.”

Piven, to their credit, said “Well, we actually sent a really great teacher. And if that’s a problem, I guess we have to cancel the workshop.” In that, I’m a rarity among trans folks: my primary employers have stood by me through coming out, transitioning, being an out trans woman. Piven did everything they could to fight for me. But they couldn’t get me un-fired. They couldn’t prevent me from being the target of bigotry and fear.

Which was a particular slap in the face, because Illinois is one of the twelve states where it is illegal to fire someone for being transgender! But I was fired, legal protection or not.

Trans people are easy to discard. We’re so weird! So freaky! So different! Occupy Wall Street had a women’s-only tent at Zuccotti Park, as a way to allow female participants in the Occupy movement to feel safe. But the tent instituted a “womyn-born-womyn’ policy. (That’s “womyn” with a ‘y’.) This type of policy, most widely known for its use at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival every August, says the only ‘real’ women, the only women who are allowed in a particular space must have been born women. Trans women (who, according to this line of thought, weren’t born women) need not apply.

We are the 99%. Unless we’re not, apparently.

Chanting off, alone: The people united, will never be defeated.

Specifically, I’m at a part in the show where I’d like to get into issues of discrimination. Of violence against trans folks. Of harassment. Rape. Murder. Of things that I – bless the gods – have only experienced peripherally, if at all.

How do I move from telling my story, to telling our story?

The work that I’ve done in the past has consisted of primarily two types of on stage storytelling: metaphor, and my own personal narrative. The former is, I’ve been told by audiences, really helpful: using The Little Mermaid, creating my own stories and myths and metaphors, talking about recipes and lectures and the like. The latter, while somewhat more ‘obvious,’ has also been positively received. I’m often the first trans person audience members have seen who is telling her own story, in her own words. From friends to reviewers, I’ve gotten the message that personal narrative is a key part of what makes my performances powerful.

But what about the stories of other people? I’m looking right now at the National Center for Trans Equality’s report on the status of trans folks, and horrible things are happening that I simply have been lucky enough to not be a target of:

• 16% of trans folks have worked in the underground economy (sex work, drugs, etc) for income
• 19% have been outright refused medical care
• 57% experienced significant family rejection
• 19% experienced violence at the hands of a family member

And on and on and on.

How do I tell those stories without acts of appropriation?

I’ve been talking with some friends this week about that problem, and the biggest thing I keep being told is I’m blowing the ‘problem’ out of proportion. I should absolutely be conscious to not cast stories as my own unless they actually happened to me, but this is violence and discrimination happening within my community. I can acknowledge and embrace that in a way a cisgender person probably couldn’t. (At least, not without great difficulty.) So I’m not appropriating in the same way I would be if I were trying to tell the story of people of color. Or disabled folks. Etc, etc, etc.

Second, to help reassure my own worries, I should start talking with some other trans folks. Whether or not they were the specific targets of the discrimination I’ll be portraying, they can offer there thoughts and insights in how to respectfully and truthfully address trans issues. I’ve already started doing this, and the general consensus is I’m going about this in a respectful and methodical way, and that I worry too much. (Which shouldn’t be news to anyone.)

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I need to acknowledge that these issues are mine, even if they didn’t happen to me. As one friend said, “your body has been targeted and implicated [in this violence], too.”  Systemic violence and discrimination against trans folks is directed at me, even if I’ve been (mostly) fortunate enough to not be on the receiving end so far.

And it’s royally fucked up to say “Well, I’ve only been fired, but I haven’t been raped or beaten. I’m pretty fortunate, all things considered.” I’m allowed to acknowledge that, too.

The (basic) text of the piece is below, but I first want to talk about the experience of the performance. It was a nice space, maybe 60 or 70 people, so not too overwhelming. Likewise, I could see everyone, something I really like when performing. My current show, Trans Form (obligatory: only two weeks left – buy tickets today!) has a section where I change in and out of different tops, and am in a bra for a few minutes, but tonight was a whole different realm. It was scary, it was nerve-wracking, and it was incredibly empowering.

I’ve talked before about being topless while trans, and a follow-up conversation I had with my dad. I’m still seriously thinking about going topless sometime next summer as a political act. I consider tonight part of that, of saying, “I get to define who I am, and what about my body I reveal, not anyone else.” It also felt very much to be a way for me to state pride in and power over my body, to celebrate it and refuse to have it be hidden.

There wasn’t really a sexual component, though, which was interesting to discover. I wasn’t expecting there to be, but I discovered a big difference between empowerment and exhibitionism, at least for myself.

I’m still reflecting on all this, and coming down off the high of a performance that went well, so I’ll probably post more about all this later in the week. I’m having difficulty putting into words exactly why using my body in performance in this way felt so good, made me feel so good about myself. As those thoughts start to settle, I’ll definitely fill you in. In the meantime, here’s the basic text of the piece I did. For those of you who have been around for a while, you’ll recognize a lot of the text and stories comes from other events I’ve posted about.

As a transgender woman, something not many people know much about, I’ve chosen to become an advocate and educator on behalf of myself. As such, I’ve spoken to a lot of high school and college students. This past spring, I was speaking to a high school group in the area. I love high school students: they’re old enough to ask good questions, and young enough to not realize they ‘shouldn’t’ ask certain things.

This one group had been great, and was asking a lot of good questions. As an example of how funny people can get when you’re freely saying ‘penis’ and ‘vagina,’ though, I’ll give one hilarious example.

A student, near the end of the discussion, worked up the nerve to ask, “You, um…you said you hadn’t had…the surgery yet, right?”

I feel like, in an educational setting, it’s important to be straightfoward. “No, I haven’t.”

“But you, um…” (He was super awkward) “You…like girls, right?”

“I identify as a lesbian, yes.”

(Huge pause.) How would that…if you did have the surgery…how would that…work?”

Without saying a word, the girl in front him – with a look of utter disdain and disappointment - turned around and waved her fingers in his face, displaying one way that “that” could certainly work.

Another question the kids asked, and something I’ve been asked before, is whether or not I regret anything about transitioning. Usually my answer is either a simple “No,” or to say that I regret not transitioning even earlier. And, indeed, that’s the answer I gave these students.  But the question was bouncing around in my head the rest of the weekend. It was the first beautiful weekend of spring, a weekend that reminds you Chicago will eventually have warm weather and going to the beach doesn’t seem quite so far out of reach.

And I realized, I really missed being able to go to the beach topless.

It’s sort of a shame: back when I was presenting as male, was hairy, didn’t like my body, I could display it in the tiniest Speedo I should so desire. But now that I have undergone hair removal, grown breasts, like my body, I have to cover it up whether or not I want to.

Last may I was in the hospital to get my gallbladder removed. (This is the point where I removed my shirt.) You can see the scar – here’s where they removed it, and here and here and here are where they inserted the camera and tiny tools. I was in the hospital from a Monday to Friday – the longest I can remember ever being in a hospital – and it gave me lots of time to think about my body, what it means to be trans. My mom stayed by my bed the entire time. Afterwards I asked her why, said I was an adult and could take care of myself, and she said all the stories I’d told her about trans people mistreated by the medical community made her not want to let that happen to me.

And it’s true: It would have been easy for a doctor or nurse or administrator to refuse to respect my identity; to listen to what’s between my legs instead of what’s in my heart.

Being in the hospital also made me think about what it means to be strong in one’s body. I was weak, literally to the point of being unable to sit up or go to the bathroom on my own, and I had lots of time to reflect on what discomfort can do to a person.

When I got out of the hospital and healed up, I was finally able to go to the beach. But not topless. I did some research, and found that the City of Chicago doesn’t allow for women to show their nipples. Men can. I could when I was presenting as male, hairy chest and all. But now, presenting as a woman, I could be ticketed. If I’m really unlucky, I could be arrested. Taken to jail. The criminal justice system doesn’t have a history of treating trans people very well. It’s all too possible I could be beaten, raped, killed. Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance, memorializing the dozens of trans and gender non-conforming people killed this past year, and countless more who weren’t reported. I’d love to get arrested and argue with a judge about what it means to be a man or a woman, but am scared of the potentially dangerous ramifications.

All tor doing something as simple as removing my top. (As I say the line, I removed my bra.)

I really want to make a stink, to try and get a ticket. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should do that, this past summer. Because what does it mean to be a man, to be a woman? My drivers license says “F,” but only because I lied at the DMV. My insurance says “F,” but only because I left that section blank and they assumed “Rebecca” means “Female.” My birth certificate says “M,” but only because Illinois requires The Surgery before changing it. Which of those documents ‘wins?’ And why doesn’t my own stated identity factor into it?

All my life I’ve been told it means this to be a man, this to be a woman. You should feel this way about your body, not that way. This document doesn’t match that document doesn’t match what this person says doesn’t match what that person says doesn’t match what I see on TV doesn’t match what my family tells me doesn’t match what the government tells me.

But I get to decide what my body means. How its gendered. I get to decide what my flesh signifies to the world, not the other way around.

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?

My friend was reminding me that it’s a show. My portrayal of myself on stage is obviously complicated and difficult. But I am allowed to take artistic liberties without needing to feel like I’m being dishonest or misrepresenting the truth.

And I’m allowed to give my performance-self a happy ending, in the hope that reality just might reflect art.

Enjoy!

First, this past Monday, I performed in The Homo Show, a variety show put on by About Face Theatre. It was tons of fun and, although I was really nervous, it went well. I performed a piece based off this post, although with a more positive ending. I got lots of positive feedback (and apparently made one woman cry, which is a first for me…) so it charged me up as I work toward my December performance.

On a separate note, I’m typing this on a shiny new (old) Power Mac G5 – one of the more advanced pre-Intel Mac desktops. I’m still getting used to it and all its quirks… For example, I know “different” and “stupid” aren’t the same thing, but some of the Mac keyboard shortcuts are just flat out stupid. As far as I can see, there’s no rhyme or reason to why some shortcuts use Ctrl, some use Apple, and some use Option.

If anyone knows of any logic behind Apple’s shortcut choices, I’d love to hear about it…

I’m also not horribly impressed with the eye candy. Sure, it’s pretty, but the defaults on the most recent release of Ubuntu is pretty, too.

All that said, I am enjoying playing with OS X and am getting ready to try the iLife suite along with Final Cut Express. I’m rather unhappy about my photo software options, as iPhoto organizes your pictures for you. That bugs the hell out of me, and Picasa – which I used on Ubuntu – is for Intel Macs only. I’m a big girl, and I can organize my files all by myself, so iPhoto (which, unlike iTunes, doesn’t have an option to let me organize my files) is sadly gonna stay the fuck away from my pictures, at least for the time being.

That is, if I can get the files off my external drive in the first place. My drive, formatted as NTFS, works fine in Ubuntu and Windows, but refuses to mount on a Mac. It shows up in the Disc Utility, but says the format type (rather than NTFS) is “Master Boot Record.” Grrr…

The files are still there, so I’m not panicking, but I’d like to be able to play with iPhoto to confirm that I don’t want to use it. =P

-R

Part two is forthcoming.

-R