Supposedly, if you place a frog in cold water and slowly bring the temperature to a boil, the frog is too stupid to notice and hop out. (Wikipedia says it may be true, if the temperature rise is slow enough.) I’m not saying I was too stupid to notice the transition, but I do stop and wonder sometimes at how different my life is than it was just a few scant years ago.

Ribbit! Ribbit!

Warm and bubbly

“Becca, you’re such a musical theatre dork.”

“Formal clothing for women is so much more light-weight than for men!”

“Your long hair is so beautiful!”

“You have such good skin.”

“So you hate beer and only like fruity drinks?”

Any others y’all can think of?

To own up to my history outs me as trans and brings up a long stretch of time – the first twenty or so years of my life – that’s at odds with how I see myself now. When I talk with people about Judaism, do I acknowledge my Bar Mitzvah and out myself, or do I say I had a Bat Mitzvah and rewrite part of my life? When a coworker talks about buying suits or ties, do I chime in with memories of my experiences, or do I stay silent? Do I ask my parents to take down pictures from the first two decades of my life? To wipe clean the time before I was 22 or 23? To cover the mirrors which reflect the parts of myself I don’t always want to remember, don’t always want to see?
From Trans Form, my December 2009 show (emphasis added)

Uncovering the Mirrors postcard

My upcoming show is called Uncovering the Mirrors. It’s a reference to the bolded line above, sure, but more broadly it’s a reference to how one holds shiva (a mourning gathering in Judaism): “It is proper to cover the mirrors in the shiva house [because] a mourner is striving to ignore his/her own physicality and vanity in order to concentrate on the reality of being a soul.”

The “mirror” in my performances is a metaphor for something. In Trans Form, it was a metaphor for “the parts of myself I don’t always want to remember.” That is, the “male” parts of me that I was trying to get away from.

The title Uncovering the Mirrors, though, speaks to a desire to not cover up or hide. And so, recently, I’ve been trying to figure out what, exactly, that mirror is.

I’ve never really liked mirrors, photographs of myself, seeing myself on film, hearing myself recorded. It forced me to acknowledge my masculinity and male presentation, something that was painful and unpleasant. I also didn’t like going shopping for clothing, or getting dressed up, or formal occasions, for the same reason: they required the cultural pomp of being a man. The most fun I had getting dressed up as a man was when I was able to think of that clothing as a costume, not really “me,” and when I was with good friends. Prom comes to mind as a time when I didn’t like the clothing I was wearing, but still had fun with the whole experience of getting dressed up and going out.

As I’ve transitioned, mirrors (and photographs, and the rest) have become less scary, more desirable. I’ve discovered that I didn’t dislike shopping for clothing, I disliked shopping for men’s clothing. Indeed, this past weekend I went dress shopping with my mom (my brother’s wedding is the end of August) and actually had a good time. In retrospect, it seems obvious: it was the gender of the experience, not the experience itself. But it’s come as something of a revelation that I’m allowed to like how I look, and have fun with it.

So the mirror I’m (metaphorically) uncovering onstage this September is, I think, a different mirror than I wanted to cover last December. I’m uncovering a mirror that reflects who I am, not who I was. A mirror that lets me see myself as I want to be seen by others. A mirror in which I can experiment, yes, and sometimes fall short of my ideals. But a mirror that does not allow for imposed judgment or gendering at the hands of others.

Returning to the analogy of sitting shiva, mirrors are covered so that mourners are not tempted to focus on their own vanity; thoughts should be turned to the deceased and to prayer. Likewise, from that link above, covering the mirrors “symbolizes [a] withdrawal from society’s gaze.” It follows, then, that uncovering the mirrors is a return to society, and an allowance for thoughts to dwell on appearance and vanity.

I wouldn’t say I’m done mourning my need for transition, the imposed gender and oppression I experienced growing up. But I’m ready to uncover the mirrors.

Then, I met up with a friend for her trolley party.

Not a great picture, but undeniable proof of trolley-hood

I’m not totally sure why she was having a trolley party – I think a friend of hers was in from out of town, which is as good an excuse as any – but a bunch of people I knew from Northwestern were also there. One of whom hadn’t seen me since I’d transitioned, and clearly didn’t remember who I was.

She introduced herself as Becca, I thought initially because she remembered me but wasn’t sure how to ask about my new name. We agreed that our spelled – Rebecca – is obviously right, and every other variation is wrong. We continued chatting while at one of the bars along the way (we alternated between trolley cruising and stopping at bars) and she mentioned that she knew the hostess from Northwestern. I said I did, too, and kind of awkwardly mentioned that she and I knew each other from Northwestern, too.

“Wait, what’s your last name?” she asked.

“Kling,” I replied, “Rebecca Kling.” She paused, trying to remember. I finally offered, “Did you know [male name] Kling?”

“Oh yeah, I remember him! Did you two get married?” This honestly wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, and made me laugh.

“No,” I continued. “I used to be him.”

A look of confusion spread across her face for a quick second, and then she broke out into a huge grin. “Oh, there you are!” She reached out her hand to cup the side of my face. “You’re so beautiful! There’s your face!”

It was sort of a surreal experience, but a really delightful one. The number of people I need to come out to has gone down over time (obviously) but I still get tired at the thought of coming out to someone I haven’t seen in a few years. In this case, I had a moment of worrying over what her reaction would be, only to be utterly surprised and buoyed by the reality.

It was, my roommate later commented, like the moment in Hook where the Lost Boys accept Peter back:

The rest of the evening was also a blast. How could it not be, with a kick-off like that? Don’t have tons of pictures, but these are from going back to one of the hostesses’ apartments post-trolley:

Intriguing...

Dun dun duuuuuuuuh!

A little early, I know

I had brunch with my dad this morning, following our recent issues. Going to brunch was definitely the right thing to do, but I don’t know that I’m happy I went. I certainly don’t feel any better.

We basically talked in circles for an hour. I attempted, once again, to explain why and how his behavior was hurtful for me. Even though I don’t doubt that he loves me, the way we interact still causes me a lot of pain.

And, over and over, he repeated his favorite refrains: “I can’t change what I feel. My feelings are just as valid as yours. You’re asking me to change over night. I had a son for 23 years. I’m trying.”

Hard to have pride...

So, once again, I did my best to explain where I’m coming from. How it feels when he refuses to take down pictures of me from before my transition. I said, “I realize that you perceived me as your son, and have positive associations with those memories. But I’m telling you that isn’t what happened. That person never existed. And to see you celebrate something that was so incredibly painful for me is like you’re cutting into me.”

My dad, in turn, insists that his memory is just as valid as mine. That he isn’t going to revise his memories because I’ve transitioned. That he can’t change what he feels.

And that’s the point where I just want to give up. I almost walked out of brunch today, because I don’t see how we can find any common ground if he claims his ‘vision’ of my identity is just as valid as mine. It’s not – I get to decide who I am, and who I was, not him.

Which brings me to the title of this post: When are feelings not valid? Obviously I don’t doubt that my dad is telling me the truth about what he feels. I fully believe that my transition is really hard for him. But I don’t know that I can – or should, or will – respect those feelings anymore.

The analogy I used with my dad was of racism. If I were dating someone who wasn’t white, it wouldn’t matter if my dad “honestly” felt that my partner were sub-human. I wouldn’t respect his feelings and, if he couldn’t reign them in or keep them in check, I’d tell him to fuck off and get out of my life.

“Not if I was trying, I hope!” was my dad’s reply.

Well, at some point, isn’t trying not good enough? And those “feelings” aren’t false, but I’m sure as hell not going to respect them.

My dad continues to insist that I’m asking him to change “overnight” and that he’s had “23 years of having a son.” But then he went on to say training himself to use my actual name and pronouns might take a month, a year, five years, twenty years. While I’m all for owning up to your own faults, I don’t know if I can deal with that. It’s not good for my emotional health, it’s not good for my mental health, and (as I’ve seen when I’m really stressed) it’s not good for my physical health.

In the short term, I’m thinking of telling him I need some time. I don’t really want to cut off communication with him, again, but I also really don’t want any contact with him.

As usual.

Yeah, it's a little cheesey. What do you want from me?

Transitioning, for me, has primarily been an experience of moving away from things. At every stage, I’ve thought about how unhappy I was, not about how things would be better if I did XYZ.

I went into therapy because I was miserable, not because I was particularly sure I could be happy. I went on hormones because presenting and living as male fit me horribly, like an itchy and too-tight outfit, full of pins and needles. Not because I thought I’d succeed as living as a woman. I underwent hair removal because being hairy felt all wrong, not because I thought being smooth would be pleasant.

Fortunately, I was wrong about those things: When I reached whatever minor goal I’d set for myself it was better, not simply “less bad.” But my thought process was still about moving away from things – a false presentation, hiding something, masculinity – not moving toward anything.

I’ve been continuing to think about The Surgery. And I’ve realized that, for the first time in my transition, I’m interesting in moving toward something rather than away.

Scalpels and scissors and SCARY!

I’ve talked about The Surgery before (most recently here) and I know that I’m much more interested in SRS than I was two years ago, let alone ten. But this is the first time I’ve considered it in terms of ‘moving away’ versus ‘moving toward’ something. To be honest, it’s kind of a scary proposition. I’m so used to thinking about what’s wrong in my life, what makes me unhappy, that thinking about what could make me happy seems really foreign and overwhelming.

It’s much easier to say “What’s going on right now is making me unhappy. I guess I’ll have to do something about it”" than it is to say “What’s going on right now isn’t so bad, but it’s not what I want. Lets change it!” The former seems obvious. The latter seems selfish and indulgent.

Obviously, that’s a false picture, because it’s not selfish and indulgent. But I’m really bad at recognizing what I want (in any situation) as legitimate and worthy of consideration. I’m so used to settling, to assuming that things aren’t great but could always be worse.

I think I’m also carrying around a lot of cultural baggage. Sex reassignment surgery is not something that’s viewed respectfully in 99% of the media out there, and that’s taken its toll on how I think about it for myself. There’s something that feels dirty about the idea of wanting a vagina. Of rejecting my penis.

But I want to like my body, enthusiastically and all over, not just feel like I’m settling.

I'm not convinced my father could carry me on his shoulders these days...

Earlier this week, I asked my mom to call my dad. I hate having her act as an intermediary between the two of us, but I wanted to figure out what – if anything – he’d be doing about my hospital bills and insurance since my telling him off. He’s been speaking with the “risk management” department at the first ER I visited, because when I finally got my gallbladder out they strongly implied the first ER should have caught the gallstones.

So my mom called my dad. She said she’d thought things out beforehand, and opened by asking him, “Rebecca asked me to talk to you about the insurance situation, and if you need to return any of the paperwork to her.” (My mom knew he didn’t, as I’d provided him with copies, but wasn’t sure how to say “So are you continuing to help your daughter while refusing to speak to her, or not?” without sound like she was judging him. Which she was, but didn’t want to sound like it.) He replied, “Nope. She’s fine to speak to the hospital herself,” and said goodbye.

About three minutes later, he called my mom back. “I don’t like you being a go-between for Rebecca and I.”

My mom said that she didn’t want to be a go-between either, but just wanted to figure out what was happening with the hospital and insurance.

Ever the tactful one, my dad told my mom that “Rebecca can call me herself. But I won’t be calling her until I hear from her. So I guess she’ll have to figure things out with the hospital on her own.” And, that said, hung up on my mom.

I’m not too concerned about the hospital. Worst case scenario is I pay them the ~$1,000 they say I owe. That’ll obviously suck, but my insurance is covering the vast majority of the expenses, so I wont have to go into debt or anything too bad. I know my mom said she’d help with the bills, too.

And, to some extent, it’s nice not having to deal with my dad for a while. Obviously it’d be nicer to not have to “deal” with him because we were speaking and he didn’t need “dealing with,” but this is a (distant) second-place substitute.

One less thing I have to think about. Anyone want to start a pool on if or when I’ll hear from him? Because he won’t be hearing from me.

Oh Daffy. He gets so close to understanding where he goes wrong. And then, inevitably, he ends up getting shot in the face.

Just about ten years ago, I came out to my parents. For a long time, that didn’t really mean anything: no changes, no transitioning, just them having the knowledge that I’m trans.

About three years ago, I started on hormones and mark that as the general beginning of my actual transition. While I spent about a year presenting as male some of the time and female some of the time, both of my parents knew I was transitioning and (at some point during that “in between” year)  I had a chat with both of them about wanting to be called Rebecca, and referred to with feminine pronouns.

Last night, my dad – who is attempting to help me with some insurance stuff from having my gallbladder removed – called to ask my about my social security number. “It’s still under [male name], right?”

I paused, surprised he would even ask such a question. “No, I went to the social security office and had it changed.”

“Oh. But do you have a new card?”

Frustrated, I told him, “Yes. A new card. With Rebecca on it. Sitting on my desk at home. Same social security number, different name.”

“Oh, OK.”

It wasn’t until reflecting on the conversation that I realized how upset it made me. After ten years of being out to him, does he not understand how important this is to me? It wasn’t that he wanted to double-check about the name associated social security number. I could understand if he said, “I just wanted to double check that your social security number is under Rebecca now.” Or even, “Hey, what name is on your social security card these days?” I might be a little annoyed, but not really upset or hurt. But the way he did phrase it, assuming it wasn’t important enough to have gotten changed, really made me feel like he still, after all these years, is just as clueless as he was when I came out to him.

He’s the only person in my life who still constantly slips up with names or pronouns. No matter how feminine I make my presentation, no matter who we’re with, it’s a regular stream of “he” and “his” and “him,” not to mention my old name. He does surprise me sometimes, but he usually just upsets me when we talk about anything substantial.

So, later in the evening, I called him back. I told him that he had really hurt me by assuming I hadn’t changed the name on my social security card. That it hurts me every time he uses ‘he’ or slips up on my name. That I have no doubt he loves me as his child, but am really unconvinced he loves me as his daughter. That I love him, and always will, but can only have him in my life if he affords me the same respect everyone else in my life does.

He tried to turn it around, to say he hoped I didn’t make the choice of removing him from his life.

“No,” I said, “This isn’t about my choice. This is about your choice to not respect my identity. You don’t get to make this about my “choice.”"

“But I’m trying,” he insisted.

“After ten years of being out to you, and three years of transitioning, ‘trying’ simply isn’t good enough any more. I hope you’ll be able to see that, and be able to continue to be a part of my life.”

And then I hung up on him.

I really hope he does get his act together. I offered to find him resources, suggest therapists, and give him places to find support.

But I’m not holding my breath. And he’s the one who know has to make the first move.

It’s

• Do you want to have “bottom” surgery?

“Bottom” surgery usually means sex reassignment surgery (SRS) and I think “want’ is a tricky word to use here. If the Vagina Fairy came through my window (no, not that one) to wave her wand and give me a pussy, I’d say “Yes!” in a heartbeat. I’d also say that I do want to have had SRS, in the same way I want to have learned a foreign language: I want the results, but don’t want to go through the pain and suffering to get there. But do I want to have surgery at some point in the future?

I’m not sure.

Any surgery is scary. SRS is particularly scary: it’s taking a currently-functioning part of my body, albeit a part I don’t love, and cutting it open to invert it. (That link is just a description with text, not images. If you want to see images, a relatively un-scary series of drawings can be found here, and links to photos can be found here. I won’t link to any potentially scary stuff without telling you. Don’t worry.) In addition to all of the normal risks of surgery – complications, infections, etc – there’s the possibility I’d never be able to orgasm again. Admittedly, SRS is getting better and better all the time, so this is a diminishing possibility, but no surgeon I’ve researched has anything close to a ‘guarantee’ you’ll be able to orgasm post-op. It’s also expensive. I have a hard time imagining spending $15,000+ on anything, let alone SRS.

For all that, I’ve been thinking more and more about surgery over the course of transitioning.

What I need to do, and what my therapist has encouraged me to do, is make some consult appointments with some surgeons and get more info. This may be easy, if I’m lucky and any surgeons are coming to Be All Chicago in June. Otherwise, it may require trips to Colorado, Arizona, Montreal, or (leaving North America) Thailand, which will obviously add costs above and beyond the surgery itself.. I just sent an email to Be All inquiring if any surgeons will be attending and providing consults or information, so hopefully I’ll hear back soon.

Because I don’t think the Vagina Fairy will be coming anytime soon – like everything else in this transition, if I want a new set of equipment between my legs, I’m going to have to do something about it.

• Do you experience discrimination?

I’m spoiled rotten by artistic, professional, and interpersonal communities that – with few exceptions here and there – don’t treat me differently since I came out to them, or started transitioning. I definitely don’t feel like I’ve experienced notable discrimination. In fact, there’s currently something of an informal affirmative action campaign going on in some parts of the LGBT community, trying to give a greater voice to trans individuals. I’m not above working that when I can, and I think it’s helped get my art some exposure it might not have otherwise received.

• Do transwomen still produce sperm?

Well, it depends what you mean by trans women. Trans women on hormones probably don’t. (I didn’t, even when I wanted to.) Trans women not on hormones are usually like any average man, so would produce sperm. But I wouldn’t rely on hormones as birth control, unless you’ve gotten your sperm count checked: If a trans woman and a cis woman are going to have vaginal intercourse and absolutely don’t want to get pregnant, I’d still recommend a condom or other form of birth control.

• Do you feel you have any physical limitations?

I’ve mentioned having some frustration over losing muscle mass from the increased estrogen and decreased testosterone levels in my blood. That’d be the biggest thing I consider a physical limitation, and only because I have the ability to compare what testosterone does for muscle mass. Beyond that, I do think having a penis can be a limitation purely in the sense of women’s clothing. I absolutely don’t think you have to have a vagina to be a woman (and I’d consider myself as proof of that!) but tight clothing for women assumes that you will. I have a tight dress or two that I can only wear with very snug underwear, and I don’t feel comfortable wearing exercise pants or bathing suit bottoms without looser shorts over ‘em. I’d say those are the extents of my limitations, though.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I stayed silent too long, spoke too softly to be heard, gave in too quickly.

My kindergarten classroom stretched along an endless hallway. There was a finger-painting station, a corner with cardboard building blocks, a book nook, a playhouse with a kitchen. Trim along the ceiling had numbers, one for each day of the school year, and we would hold a little classroom celebration every time we hit a number ending in zero. We sang, and drew, and played tag at recess. Once a week, I would leave the class and go down the hall to talk with the school psychologist. Even then, my parents knew something was wrong.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell her – in her office with reassuring colors and a calm far removed from the kindergarten class – that there had been some mistake, that my bowl-cut should have been reserved for a boy, could I trade in my button-down shirts for pigtails, please?

I’m sorry I chose blue, rather than pink. My bunk bed was blue (a hand-me-down, perhaps that doesn’t count), my walls after we moved were painted blue (light blue, not too manly), my walls after we moved again were blue (still light blue, still not too manly), my jeans were blue (but so were everyone’s, that doesn’t count either). The sky was blue as I looked up from the soccer field, wondering why I was playing on the boys team, watching kites overhead and wishing I could fly away, too. The cold water of Lake Michigan was blue, where I raced in wearing only swimming trunks, my skinny hairless body splashing to the surface and sending ripples toward my mom, who laughed, my dad, who laughed and splashed back.

I’m sorry I couldn’t control my/our/your body better. I tried. I tucked my penis between my legs and stood, looking at you in the mirror. I snuck into my parents’ room and tried on my mom’s one-piece bathing suits, tucking dangly bits out of the way and stuffing the top with tissues or socks. When she confronted me, I denied that I’d ever gone through her things and she let the matter drop. Even after I switched from briefs to boxers, I kept a pair of briefs hidden in a drawer because I liked the way they let me hold everything tight, up, out of the way, smooth.

I rejected the idea that hair could be springing up anywhere but the top of my head, denied that a foreign and unwanted growth was spreading across my skin, was repulsed by the way hairs painlessly slid out of follicles, like foul vegetation bursting from a decaying corpse. I wanted my skin to hurt with each hair’s pinprick, their escape into sunlight, to show how wrong and unnatural they were. I’m sorry my will and desire couldn’t suppress their growth. I’m sorry for the hormones and the hair and the height and all of the other h-words.

I’m sorry for all the photographs, especially the ones where I look happy. Where I forgot that the moment would be recorded in time as a testament to boyhood. Against girlhood. The pictures and home videos that stand as “proof”: here was a boy. The gifts and toys and chotchkies with that name on them; my name, ostensibly. Your name. Baby momentos and picture frames and penny banks and train statues. Yearbooks with inscriptions written to me, to him. “See you next year!” “Keep in touch!” If I could, I would take back the scrawled signatures on countless documents: homework, the inside cover of book after book after book, postcards.

Even my handwriting was passed from me to you, from me to me, from me to us. A handwriting which scrables to take hold on a horizontal line and causes me to wince when I see the same sloppy angles or curves as my father. Here, typing and technology has been a curse: my speed at typing made me impatient with the hand-written word, makes slowing down and taking my time seem an excrutiating waste. I saw my handwriting develope into something blocky and masculine and ugly, and I’m sorry I didn’t alter its course and gift you with something more graceful.

I’m sorry for the vocal chords which still crack on occasion, the singing voice that is pleasant only in a masculine range, the energy it takes to stay light and feminine. I’m sorry that yelling and projection usually involves dropping into a deeper range, one I don’t particularly like hearing from myself. That during vocal warmups or group exercises backstage I try to mask where my voice breaks.

I’m sorry I didn’t spirit away makeup to practice putting on, didn’t enlist girlfriends to help me learn how to look pretty. I’m sorry I left you with hands that shake and a sense of overwhelming confusion and inadequacy.

I’m sorry that you run into parents of childhood friends and enemies, that interactions which should be quick and quickly forgotten become slow and prying and awkward. That mom receives a hug and you receive a handshake. Because, in their eyes, you’re not the woman she is.

I’m sorry my existence has given such power to others, that they can bring you crashing down with a pause or a pronoun.

I’m sorry the only shoes I had to wear to my brother’s funeral were platforms, leaving me towering over family and friends and mourners, because my wardrobe was/is still woefully incomplete. Bending down to give and receive hugs, over and over, pretending I felt confident as the woman I was presenting as. Being ignored by cousins who you didn’t want to talk to anyway but would have liked the courtesy to be acknowledged by them.

I’m sorry I stayed silent too long, spoke too softly to be heard, gave in too quickly.

I’m sorry it’s difficult to correct the mistakes I made.

I’m sorry you’re hurting.

I’m sorry.