Topic of the Week: Excerpt Discussion

[Anita]

Hi All--

CJ quoted RuPaul:

Be whatever you want to be--that is the challenge--and feel free to use whatever you want to reinvent yourself as whatever you want.

Rupaul's words are inspiring to read. At the same time, it requires some motivation to act on the things that she's talking about in all of these quotes. What I would like to know is: where does motivation come from?

If you've already got it, then it's easy to do things that replenish it. If you don't have it, or have let it slip, it can seem impossible to build it back.

I'm really rolling right now--new CD coming out, a good relationship going, and two bands that have lots going for them. I read RuPaul's words, and it's easy to identify with them. She's talking about "going for it," and I'm doing just that.

But I can remember down times, when I wondered if I could even keep up the energy to survive, let alone work. And in those times, reading something like the above quote would have just depressed me more, or made me angry. It wouldn't have inspired me, because I was just too far down.

You've got to somehow light the fire inside yourself to get out of such times, and that's what makes me curious. People do it, but where does that will to live come from?

Elizabeth wrote:

I read RuPaul's book at a really critical time. I don't know how many of you remember when I left to stay with my best friend in Wyoming right before my marriage broke up and I went full time. That book had a lot to do with my decision to just be happy to be me.

Elizabeth was down, but she wasn't out. She had enough energy going to be able to recognize a source of help, and act on it. She had a critical mass of motivation, I guess you could say.

But I'm dealing with several friends who don't have that right now, and I can't jump-start them with my own motivation. It's got to come from within. Watching someone else continue to go down in spite of your best intentions is one of the hardest things that can happen to us. I continue to feel that my friends can recover from this, but I have no idea how it's going to come about.

Kimberly wrote:

Your do not care this is me attitude is basically like that of a GG's just knowing she is a GG. In that through your attitude you do pass or are just accepted by others for who you are. They see you as a gal, just very masculine looking.

Something like that happens. I never talk about passing; I talk about "blending in." I can't say why I can blend in, but I know that I can and do. That seems to be what both you and Elizabeth are talking about. Blending in means that I get treated with respect, there's no sudden reactions from anyone, and I don't see any double-takes or knowing smiles.

Yes, I know it's often said that people are busy with their own thoughts and don't pay attention, but I don't find that to be true. If people truly 'read' me, they suddenly act surprised, shocked, or wide-eyed. It wakes them up, no matter how pre-occupied they might have been. Since this doesn't happen very often, I can assume that I don't attract that kind of notice.

I hadn't thought about the "masculine" gg look, but maybe that does let me off the hook. Who knows? I'm just glad that it IS possible to go out in public day after day without major hassles. I do live in a very tolerant area, too, and that's part of it. But I've found that even people in tolerant areas will react just as strongly as anyone else if they're surprised by your appearance. I try to be just another gal, going about her business.

[CJ]

You've got to somehow light the fire inside yourself to get out of such times, and that's what makes me curious. People do it, but where does that will to live come from?

Hi all,

Okay, this is a tough one, Anita, but here's what I think. There's no need to light the fire inside yourself; it's already there. What you need to do is to stoke it. An illustration: whenever I go to my father's place in the summertime, I like to build a fire in the pit out back. Before turning in, I cover the fire with ashes. The following morning, I return to the pit (after having filled the birdfeeders, of course!) and poke around in the ashes with a half-burned stick. Before long, thin wisps of smoke start curling up from the pit. A few more minutes of poking and prodding with the stick and, suddenly, an unsuspected ember flares up from beneath the ash. I add a log or two and, in the time it takes for my sleepy-eyed dad to call out from the kitchen window that the coffee is ready, the fire is going again. No lighting required. What was believed to have died was merely smoldering under the cover of its own residue, waiting for a touch to rekindle it.

This has become a ritual for me. When I stopped to think about why I enjoyed reviving that fire so much, the answer wasn't very long in coming: simply, I see myself in that fire. That fire is a metaphor that represents what I feel I've gone through in my own life. Even in my darkest days--even in your friends' darkest days, Anita--the embers are there. Don't let go of that stick; massage the ashes... even if your arm and wrist get tired (but, careful here; not too tired). You'll soon bask in the glow of your friends again.

The way I understand what RuPaul is saying is that, the fire--the shine--is already there, inside us but, because of the ash that covers it (and this could be due to others' hatred or low opinion of us just as much as it could to our own hatred or low opinion of ourselves), the fire--the shine--appears to have died. However, even when this appears to be the case, if you squint just so, you'll see a stray spark.

I've mentioned this before somewhere (and somewhen) else on the forum and I'll mention it again: often, it's we, ourselves, who "imprison" our shine. We do this by building an impregnable psychological fortress around ourselves to keep a world of hurt at bay. This is dangerous, though, because, while nothing gets in, it's also true that nothing gets out, not even our shine. We become like a black hole, from the gravitational pull of which not even light can escape. We make ourselves miserable when we do this. And we do this out of fear. Fear of being hurt. Fear of being rejected. Fear of not being loved. Fear of whatever. The solution? Cast off your fears. Once you begin to realize that it's possible to "let yourself out of yourself" without being utterly destroyed, your shine will begin to make itself known--both to others as well as to yourself. And, like RuPaul says, people are drawn to those who shine. They want to feel some of that warmth and see some of that light for themselves. This is what gets the ball rolling.

Having said this, Anita, I agree with you that it's hard seeing folks you care about go down a dark spiral. If you can, hold their hand with enough determination to prevent them from being "buried under the ashes," but always--and I mean, always--mind your own strength (or lack thereof). Being pulled under by a drowning person means that two will drown, not one. A goodly part of healthy self-esteem is the ability to recognize our own limits. Although it doesn't always turn out like this, chances are that a struggling soul will be heartened and given some measure of courage and strength just by knowing that there's a friend nearby who cares about her and is willing to help her in her fight to shine once again. It's when people feel that they are lost to others that they truly feel that all is lost.

I wish you well, Anita, in your efforts to help your friends. Friends, I think, are the most precious "possessions" we'll ever "own." This world would be a dark spiral, indeed, if friendships weren't part of the picture.

Elizabeth,

As usual, I enjoyed reading your post. Heh. I was hoping you'd be chiming in at some point. I remember when you went to Wyoming. I think we chatted over the phone a few times not very long after your return to California. I had no idea, though, that RuPaul, of all people, had been influential in your life. To me, as the theme of your post suggests, you were always into, well, "blending in" is as apt a description as I can think of, and yet Ru is exactly the opposite--a provocative, outspoken, controversial, and very much public figure. I had a few seconds, while reading your post, where I was agog. "RuPaul??? Elizabeth? Really??" But then I reread the excerpt and it clicked instantly. "Of course, Elizabeth would find these to be words to live by! What was I thinking?" Glad to see you post, my friend.

And thanks to all who've participated so far. I'm enjoying this thread (if I do say so m'self ).

Love,
CJ

[Elizabeth]

Anita, KimberlyS, CJ,

I was not so much thinking about her flamboyant and public life, but the "going for it", part. It made me start thinking "why not me?". I did not have a good answer. Because I might lose everything? I had already lost everything. I tried to kill myself.

But that changed me. Once I knew I could kill myself, then what reason did I have not to "go for it"? If everything went as bad as I imagined, I could simply kill myself. But in my heart I always knew that day was coming. The day when I would have to face it.

And I faced it and it was not so bad. In fact not only was it not so bad, I have never felt more alive in my entire life. As strange as this may sound, I have never fit into society as well as I do now. I have never been more comfortable with who I am, than now. I have never had more personal confidence than I have now.

Pretty weird stuff. And that was what RuPaul was telling me. And she was right and I was glad I went for it.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Virginia]

The analogy of the "black hole" can be a two edged sword for some of us.

To have a friend who is "spiraling out of control" within themselves and for us to be able to recognize that is a point in our favor. I think it credits one of the benefits of "the gift" we have and share. However the "back swing" of the sword is what we have to watch out for. That is the potential that we get sucked into the black hole of someone else's doing.

We have this innate ability through our gift to reach out to others in their time of need (its a girl thing is it not!?). But we must be very careful not to overreach as our own fragile ego can possibly become so involved that we can lose that perception of what we are trying to accomplish within trying to save our friend. We end up in such conflict that we create within ourselves our own black hole and it can combine with our friend's unfortunate situation and we can become lost as well.

We are of such fragility (how's that for a malapropism?) within ourselves that we have to be careful when we do interact with others, especially when we are trying to bring our feminine aspects to bear on the situation.
Finding that "happy medium" can be a near impossibility and can reek havoc on our fragile ego. "Did I do enough?" "Could I have done more?" "What else can/could/am I willing do?"

Some of us are strong enough to handle the ups and downs and we know we can while others of us have the best of intentions, but lack the insight to realize that we are being influenced by outside forces and can not recover before it is too late!

It is the "human condition" is it not? We are all different, even those of us who have "the gift." We see it differently, we accept it differently, we understand it differently and we definitely use it differently!

Keep the faith girls and as I say:

Go Forth Woman, and BE!!

Love you all,

Virginia

[Anita]

CJ wrote:

Even in my darkest days--even in your friends' darkest days, Anita--the embers are there. Don't let go of that stick; massage the ashes... even if your arm and wrist get tired (but, careful here; not too tired). You'll soon bask in the glow of your friends again.

There's beauty of language in that post, CJ, and thank you for putting it out there. I'll remember that fire pit image; it's a very useful one.

Even having brought myself out of such times of deep despair, I still can't say how it's done. I can describe the mechanics of it, the steps I took. Sometimes that is enough to help another.

I once wrote an article about finding the motivation to practice guitar when a person is severely depressed and has no will at all. I described a process for starting at bare-bones simplicity, "stirring the ashes," as it were. I sent it to Guitar Player magazine, and they weren't impressed; maybe it was a little too much dark side for them. But there is merit in sometimes following someone else's formula by rote, doing the exercise even when you can't feel the value of it immediately.

Elizabeth wrote:

But that changed me. Once I knew I could kill myself, then what reason did I have not to "go for it"? If everything went as bad as I imagined, I could simply kill myself

I really get a feeling for where you were coming from when you made that decision, Elizabeth. I know that our need for transgender expression can cause much pain and heartache in the short term, as friends and family try to deal with it. But on the other side of that initial pain is one of the most liberating things we can do in this life.

I don't want to make light of the pain that SOs go through in dealing with this. I can't think of anything else that is quite like it--so initially disruptive, and so potentially healing for everyone concerned, in some cases.
And for the ones who never see the healing side of it, I would expect them to feel much anger if they read this post. Nevertheless, the healing is there, because many of us on this forum have experienced it, and continue to live it.

Virginia wrote:

We end up in such conflict that we create within ourselves our own black hole and it can combine with our friend's unfortunate situation and we can become lost as well.

I've been on all sides of this one, Virginia. I've pulled some people through extreme darkness, and we came out on the other side. At least one time, though, I became lost as well, and it was bad. I'll leave it at that. Fortunately, we both made it through. It took a heavy toll on us.

Of the two friends who are going through it now, one is at a distance, so there's only so much I can do. The other one is very much aware of not wanting to undermine my ability to help her. It helps to have her keep that intention in mind, because it can be severely tested.

[Elizabeth]

Anita, Virginia,

I am wowed!!!! by depth of you girl's posts. Virginia, who claims not to be eloquent, you simply have this way of talking about things that really hits home with me. It's hard to talk about the things you speak of, but you handled it so gracefully. Which is kinda what you were saying. It is easy to get pulled into someone else's darkness.

Anita, I wish I were as calm as you appear to be. You seem to really be able to take in what is happening in your life and interact with it. I am much more reactionary and pro-active. As a result it can be difficult not to act in haste. I would like to think I am becoming more like you, but I know I still have a ways to go. It's just a weird time in my life. That's what I keep telling myself.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Zarabeth MacAllister]

Anita, Virginia,

It's just a weird time in my life. That's what I keep telling myself.

Love always,
Elizabeth

I would like to take the opportunity to state, that I am so glad that you and others that I know did NOT kill yourselves. Our world would be a much less interesting place without you in it.

The more of us there are our here, the more support we can give each other during the rough patches.

Thank you for being there for us.

*hugs*

Zarabeth

[CJ]

[CJ]

Hi all,

Okay, this one's a couple of days early as I might be a little busy come tomorrow night or Monday morning. I hope you don't mind.

August 23rd, 2008



Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods--My Mother's, My Father's, And Mine
Noelle Howey; Picador, NY, 2002. pp. xii-xvi.


I'm about to ruin the surprise.

In case you missed it way back when, maybe because it looked a little dour, like just another one of those interminable art movies about Mother Ireland, here's the big secret of The Crying Game.
Dil, the sexy club singer who sings in that throaty, melancholy way, has a penis. If you watched the movie, you learned this fact about an hour or so into the film, at which point you may have gasped and turned in awe to your boyfriend or girlfriend and scrutinized Dil for the rest of the movie, trying to detect any nascent signs of masculinity. Of course, if you were my father, you simply shrugged, downed another handful of buttered popcorn, and sighed "I knew it all along. Look at those wrists."

Of course, my father had a cheat sheet: she, like Dil, is transgendered, transsexual, gender dysphoric, gender-conflicted, a she-male, a chick with a dick.

In The Crying Game and the handful or so of other movies on transgendered folk, the climax of the story occurs when our hero or heroine comes out. It's neither pretty nor uplifting. It doesn't involve a heartfelt confession at the dinner table: "Mom... Dad...I'm gay." Our gender-confused protagonists tend to come out quite literally, after being coaxed or downright forced to drop their skivvies or unwrap a mummified bosom to the shock of their locker-room pals and oblivious sex partners. Vomiting ensues. The hot babe tearfully reveals her angry inch; the cutie-pie boy reluctantly exposes his B-cups. We in the audience ache with empathy for our hero. He (or she) is tragic in a Greek sense: Like Oedipus, he is destined to defile all society holds dear and be exiled for it. Like Pandora, she just can't keep her trap shut. And like the Chorus, we watch, we weep.
Make no mistake: drag à la Hollywood is often just that. A drag.

Since my father came out ten years ago, everyone from party guests to my college professors have wanted to know how I discovered the truth. They want to know how I found out that my dad liked to wear women's clothes, or maybe how I learned he actually wanted to become female. I'm not sure what they expect to hear, though given their soft, dulcet tones of voice, their hands placed gently upon my shoulder, I think they are expecting something rather apocalyptic.

Not that I can blame them. Since the long-ago moment when a sideburned, white-suited Phil Donahue ushered his first cross-dresser onto the talk show stage, coming out as transgender has become virtually a national spectator sport, albeit closer to the carnival freak show atmosphere of pro wrestling than the soporific, George Will-sanctioned world of baseball.
Marla (formerly Mark) or less often, Lance (formerly Laura), waits quietly in the backstage area until his or her loved ones are assembled onstage. The sour ex-wife confesses that Mark has always been a little limp-wristed; the aggrieved mother recalls how Laura always liked dodgeball more than the average Brownie. The doorbell rings. The theme music blares. Mark sashays out in a cut-away number, stopping to flip up his skirt to reveal his ruffled panties. Laura struts out, bowlegged with machismo, wearing mirrored sunglasses and a scowl.

"Did you know Mark wanted to be a woman?" the host presses.
"No, I mean... not like this," his ex-wife weeps, just before being ushered out on the arm of a pop psychologist.

The real-life, untelevised coming out moment is rarely that dramatic. Nor does it happen just once. In our particular case, my father rather uncinematically came out at least three or four times to my mother and me.
Dad first came out to my mom, his high-school sweetheart, during a casual phone chat in late 1962. My dad said he liked to wear fuzzy sweaters. Giggling, my mom said she did, too, and uncomfortable with the silence, asked whether he thought their teacher wore a hairpiece. Twenty-four years later, my mom told me that my father was a cross-dresser just after we bought jeans at a mall. Unlike my mother, I knew just how freakish this behavior must be. Thanks to the alienating power of that knowledge, the next coming out didn't happen for three years. I was seventeen by the time I finally saw my father actually dressed like a woman. She looked more like Suzanne Pleshette than Boy George.

Do you hear the strings swelling to crescendo in the foreground? You shouldn't. Let's be real here: Nobody died. I was never institutionalized or impoverished. I have been on Prozac, but suffered only a little water retention as a side effect. My parents never escaped from anything: jail, the military, the Khmer Rouge. They didn't even bother to go to Woodstock. "Yeah, I think we had a barbecue that weekend at Avon Lake," my mother mumbles now. "At Mr. Reinker's. You know, he had a boat." They are normal, in the way Ohioans respectfully refer to each other. Normal, in the way New Yorkers mean when they are feeling sorry for those people who live in the middle of nowhere.
This isn't a tragedy. It's just nonfiction.

Still, I have a girl for a dad, and that's news, even today when everyone and his brother has some newfangled family structure. I have two female parents. Not all that unusual in the scheme of "nontraditional families," except that only one is a lesbian, and only one gets to be called my mother--and they're not the same person. In a world in which 90 percent of the five thousand books about fatherhood in the library are really about manhood, that's still a real mind-blower.
I have a dad who is a woman much like me, but with better legs. And when he was still male, I had a dad possibly like yours: sullen, sporadically hostile, frequently vacant. I had a dad who became a woman in order to be nice.
I have a family that survived a life in the closet by employing humor, tinted car windows, and thousands of dollars' worth of therapy. A family that gave its patriarch Chanel No. 5 for Father's Day. A traditional family--loving father, supportive mother, doting child--that would probably be the right wing's worst nightmare.

I am a different person because my father was a man, then a girl, then a woman. I watched her go through puberty right after I did, putting on too much makeup before going for the "natural look"; wearing three-inch heels before deciding that flats had better arch support.
And as punishment for embracing her womanhood, she--once among the most highly compensated advertising creative directors in Ohio--lost many friends, and gradually plummeted toward the poverty level. In the meantime, I was congratulated for continuing to love her, for being willing to know her. No one would have blamed me, I was reminded, if I had turned my back.
When my mother told me the secret about my father, nothing actually changed, but change was finally made possible. The secret, once revealed, sliced through the hazy inertia of our average, dissatisfied, suburban lives. Like most real-life coming outs, the event itself didn't need to be harrowing or humiliating to be life-altering. My father's coming out was not the crowning climactic moment of my life; it was a beginning, a point of departure.

Ms. Howey then goes on to describe that point of departure as well as to chronicle subsequent events in light of her father's "girlhood." I highly recommend this book. The author is bright, humane, and witty. A good read.

Love,
CJ

[Anita]

Hi CJ--
This is a stimulating thread you've got going here. I'll comment on this one, and then maybe take a break, and let others carry it on.

Sometimes a thread can seem like a closed sorority if the same posters show up all the time--I want to make sure other members feel like they've got some space to talk on here, too.

This line caught my eye:

When my mother told me the secret about my father, nothing actually changed, but change was finally made possible. The secret, once revealed, sliced through the hazy inertia of our average, dissatisfied, suburban lives.

This may be one example of a "healing" that I talked about in my last post.

Anita wrote:

I don't want to make light of the pain that SOs go through in dealing with this. I can't think of anything else that is quite like it--so initially disruptive, and so potentially healing for everyone concerned, in some cases.
And for the ones who never see the healing side of it, I would expect them to feel much anger if they read this post. Nevertheless, the healing is there, because many of us on this forum have experienced it, and continue to live it.

I haven't read the book, but it sounds like the daughter was able to experience this side of it.

And when he was still male, I had a dad possibly like yours: sullen, sporadically hostile, frequently vacant. I had a dad who became a woman in order to be nice.

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

It sounds like something one of my own kids may have written.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Elizabeth]

Zarabeth,

It is my hope to give the love and support I have received here, back to those who gave to me, which is collectively all of you. Not just those I have known for a long time, but those I have only known for a short time as well. I continue to rely on all of you, even if that's bad. This is a source of strength for me. I need that, at least right now. I am comforted knowing that all of you know how I feel.

How are we to really explain this to anyone? How do we explain this need that we ourselves have no control over? It's funny but even some people who are very educated about transgendered people still just don't understand why we can't just "suck it up" and conform like everyone. Kind of the "You don't get what you want in life", kind of attitude. People didn't like living in shanty towns during the depression either, but they did it. That kind of attitude.

How could we claim to not be able to control it? How could I really rather be dead than not be able to express myself as Elizabeth?

But here I don't have to answer those questions. And it was relieving for me when I came here to find out that I didn't have to justify anything to anyone. They understood already. I could hear them talking about it. They were saying what I was thinking. A few had even told my life story.

I don't know what would have happened to me had I not found all of you. So I stay here and talk, so those who need to hear it, can. But mostly because I still love hearing about everyone's lives. The way I see it, when anyone on the team wins, we all win. So in a small way I get to share in all of your victories and can feel equally sad when things don't go so well.

I have gone the entire range of emotions here. I have spent some of my darkest hours here, but I also spent some of my most exuberant moments here. I have been over joyed and filled with anger. I have laughed and cried. But the one thing I have never felt is shame. There's no place like home.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[CJ]

Hi all,

In light of what Elizabeth has just written above, I feel it would be germane to include one of the blurbs on the back of Ms. Howey's book, especially for the truth of its very last sentence:

Noelle Howey's story is astonishing for the skill, perception, and integrity with which it is told--I was swept away immediately and couldn't stop. She grapples with what many readers will perceive initially as 'out there' subject matter, more the province of tabloids than of serious, literary writers. But tremendously gratifying, Dress Codes is both funny and entertaining, and purveys a vital social message: that there is not much more important than being at home in your body and mind. --Amy S. Wilensky, author of Passing for Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion

There is not much more important, indeed. I'm thinking of having that short quote inscribed on a plaque and hanging it above my computer.

Love,
CJ

[Carolynn]

Hi CJ.
I read this book actually a bit before I started therapy and have since passed it on. I found it interesting from the standpoint of the effect that a person who is revealed as a crossdresser or a TS can have on the family, on the fabric of the familial structure, unless it is done with proper forethought and preparation, something that is more than just rare. We had a RL example of that with our own Jennifer Mu (gg), as she struggled with the dissolution of her family. We can only regret she did not find a better solution to her own problems, and also wonder what would have happened had she had a better example for dealing with adversity.

The contrast between Noelle's narrative and the first of the families on yesterday's Oprah show is striking, in that Noelle's family was already on the edge of functionality, though she did not see it that way until later. Her father was fighting her own battle, while trying to be a parent, and yet she was holding her family at a distance too. Noelle's happiest memories of him were when he was acting and entertaining his theatre friends, on stage, with a skill prepared perhaps by decades of "acting" in the male role, as so many of us find ourselves doing. I really found her father's "girlhood" a bit less interesting, since the parallels are present to some degree in myself and others I have come to know.

She did find an accomodation with her father, and also fell into a behavioral role with her after difficulties, but I am sure she, as well as her readers, wondered how her life may have turned out had events progressed differently.

Love, Carolynn

[CJ]

Hi all,

Carolynn,

I was thinking of Jennifer as I was transcribing the excerpt but I never communicated with her often enough to get a sense of how closely or not Noelle Howey's situation paralleled her own. I agree that it's sad the route Jennifer chose to go. And I still grieve and mourn her loss. Another instance of a fireball, burning bright and hot, but burning brief. May others who find themselves in her situation benefit from both her experience as well as from Ms. Howey's.

Thanks for the rememberance, Carolynn.

Love,
CJ