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oirana word for people like you So, I'd been wondering - as it is relevant to a story I'm working on - and it turns out that there is indeed a word for a person who lives at least part-time as the opposite gender but is perfectly happy with the genitalia they were born with: transgenderist. I knew the character in question wasn't a transsexual, but it was important to me to find out if there was a classification that might fit him, even if he never uses the word (which he very well might not). According to the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, a transgenderist differs from a transsexual in that a transsexual is someone who would like, ideally, to have sex reassignment surgery whether or not they are ever able to actually undergo the procedure. Typically, a transsexual does not have surgery only because s/he is limited by financial or health reasons. Transgenderist. It's a good word, imo, with a sort of Victorian quality, like alienist.
I've talked to a minuscule number of people about my project and, even though I'm terrified of scaring characters out of my head if I talk too much about them, I will risk saying that I am happy to be working again. Well over a year ago, a friend suggested that I pursue a storyline that I'd actually been considering, and this outside opinion certainly encouraged me to think that my (extremely) vague notion could be coaxed into some semblance of a good idea. However, it has taken more time than I'd hoped for details to be revealed. Names, places, voices, colors, etc. I know there are many people who are driven batty by the suggestion that a writer's characters are separate and willful beings rather than figments of one's imagination, but after well over 30 years of taking down dictation in story form, I must disagree that willful beings and figments are mutually exclusive.
Mr. G was recently subjected to a long ramble about characters, plot, voice and tense, and was both very patient and very critical (in the classic sense of the word, if you will). He was correct in his opinion that my main character could be easier to dislike than not unless handled with skill and tact. I am short on both skill and tact in the day-to-day world, but I feel much more confident of my abilities on paper and, luckily, because I had considered the points he brought up long before this discussion, I did not cry or throw a tantrum when he implied I might be in over my head. Because, you know, I just might be. But that's the challenge and the fun of the whole thing.
So far as I can tell, there are no "transgenderist" biographies, and I'd actually be surprised if there were. Books on drag queens are fairly easy to come by, though often not very informative. While a lot of drag queens are transsexual, not all transsexuals are drag queens, and tales of the less flamboyant are thin on the bookstore shelves. Also, to my surprise, most personal accounts of transsexuals are shockingly lacking in what seems (to me, anyway) to be the most important information, i.e., when did you DO something about it? "When did you first know you were a ______?" is often a useless question, because it's usually a matter of never NOT knowing. However, if you were born with a dick but always knew you were a girl, there had to be an incident, however outwardly insignificant, when you felt you had crossed a line and would now be unable to cross back.
Earlier this year, I read Mark 947 a memoir by Calpernia Adams, whose relationship with a Marine was the basis for the movie Soldier's Girl. It's a good movie, very tragic and horrifying. I did some research after seeing it, and discovered that Ms. Adams is a Nashville native and lived in my neighborhood while growing up (well, sort of, but I'm not going to draw you a map, for which you should be thankful), and had self-published the above autobiography, which I promptly bought. It's a well-written story, very engaging, and, thankfully, doesn't focus exclusively on her relationship with the Marine. Although the story of her realizing that she was "gay" is told, there's no hint that she was at all interested in being female until...she's working as a drag queen and saving her money for surgery. Maybe it's just too difficult to explain.
I'm currently reading She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan (originally Jim), a novelist and professor who obviously is familiar with writing as a practice. Although she does go into detail about her experience and motivation, the narrative falls oddly flat when she attempts to describe her desire to have a female form. I believe her, certainly, if only because I know she had the surgery, but her description of living with the body/mind disparity that apparently tormented her is peculiarly unconvincing. I'm beginning to think that this particular desire must be experienced for oneself in order to resonate; otherwise, it must be taken on faith. I am skeptical of faith when it comes to religious matters, but I'm finding myself much more tolerant of the concept when it comes to matters of spirit or personal experience.
I am increasingly grateful that I've never felt that I ought to be more properly housed in a male form*, as the whole sex reassignment process seems grueling and alienating, and too often results in large-scale abandonment and rejection just at a time when one is finally able to interact with others as one's true self.
* My inner gay man is a different thing. He is convinced that he has a very large and lovely penis of his own and would adamantly reject anything that a surgeon might cobble together out of whatever puny tissues I have on offer. He is also still on my case re: the Hugo Boss suit he/we could have had for $300 from the Saks outlet and scoffs at my protests detailing the lack of flattering congruity between female ass and male trousers. Which is too bad, as I really liked that suit, also.
~~~
the award for best use of disco song goes to... ...and I segue into a film rec that touches on the subject above: Paris Is Burning, which has only just been released on DVD despite being a hugely popular film at the time of its original release in 1990/1. PIB is a documentary about "ballroom culture" in NYC, i.e., drag competitions focusing on "realness." If you remember Madonna's Vogue, that's about the style of posing/dancing done at the ballroom competitions, and it was her interest in this subculture that led to her hiring a number of dancers from the ballroom community to be part of her Blonde Ambition tour. So, Madonna. Anyway...The competitions take place between houses, such as House of Xtravaganza, House of Chanel International, House of Infiniti, etc., which are essentially families of affinity created by gay men and transgendered women, most of whom were rejected by their biological families. They are also mostly black or Hispanic, raised in poverty, and without formal education. They're also overwhelmingly fixated on brand name luxury goods and their implied social value, which makes for a rather poignant contrast with the fact that most are also working in or on the fringes of the sex trade. Incidentally, I think it has the best use of a disco song on a soundtrack to date (Cheryl Lynn's To Be Real). If you (heart) gay even a little bit, it's well worth renting, at least.
~~~
new age knife fights and a birthday girl: We spent a long weekend with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rhiannonhero and Mr. Rhi in Asheville, NC, which is a relatively "artistic" community, complete with a vegetarian gourmet restaurant and a store that will custom-make your hippie sandals (for a mere $300). It's also, sadly, often the closest (i.e., 500 miles) that many indie bands get to Nashville. On this trip, the three of us who had been before (everyone but Mr. G) were rather surprised to see a larger, younger, and more psychotic/meth-challenged bum community than noted on prior visits. We even got to see a crazy-ass bum fight, complete with brandished knife, feigned apologies, and sneak attack. Along with the bum fight, we got public praise karaoke, which may have incited the violence in the first place. Seriously, no one wants public karaoke of any kind, and certainly not p.k. of an evangelistic nature.
A day was spent at the Biltmore House, which is "America's Largest Private Home," previously occupied by the Vanderbilt family. I have been wanting to do the tour for years, so I was very happy to finally be making the trip. Overall, the visit was worth the somewhat ridiculous ticket price ($40 per person for the no-frills ticket), though my favorite parts were the servants' quarters, kitchens, etc. In fact, I found myself longing to take a peon-style house tour using the back stairs and passageways. Despite my profound disinterest in cleaning my own house, the idea of playing upstairs maid for a weekend was more than a little thrilling. Unfortunately, I don't believe the Biltmore House offers such specialized quasi-fetish entertainment - or at least not for a mere $40 ticket.
I had good news and bad news both in a rare/used bookstore: the book that I've been searching for for about a dozen years (Tragic Mansions by Belle Epoque socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig) does exist, but it will cost me about $1600. I was hoping for something in the range of ~$50, so this was a bit of a disappointment. While it was exciting to have a copy actually show up through abebooks.com for the first time ever, I'm not about towaste spend that much money on something I've never read or seen. Besides, it could be a truly terrible book. In fact, I'm almost certain that it is terrible, or surely it would have been reprinted sometime during the years since 1927.
We had good food at every meal. I finally got to have THE salad - the Asian Fusion with the addition of avacado - at The Laughing Seed. You may recall that a couple of years ago I drove all the way to Asheville to 1) meettynantblue0162, and 2) have THE salad, but the restaurant was closed that evening due to a hepatitis scare, and my heart was a little bit broken because of this. And, yes, I realize this was crazy behavior, but Chrissy is a really nice girl, and THE salad is really tasty. I've been thinking about THE salad ever since, and, thankfully, it was just as good as I remembered. Mr. Rhi and I drank a bottle of wine and found ourselves very amusing, but apparently our humor did not cross sobriety lines intact.
Talked to a nice stranger who answered all of our questions about his mint-green Stella scooter. Right now, I drive the "good" car, a 98 Subaru Forester, which both the Mr. and I love. Mr. G's current car is a creaky mess and has a tempermental manual transmission. Although I learned to drive on a manual, I haven't driven a stick in nearly 20 years and Mr. G doesn't want to teach me (and I really don't want to learn, so we're even). Rather than buy another car at this time, we're thinking a scooter would be good for around-town trips, and if gas is going to hover around $3 a gallon (or even higher), then getting 80-100 mpg for all the short trips I make would be a somewhat brilliant idea. The Stella is made in an old Piaggio factory and is basically the same scoot as a Vespa P-150, but it's about a thousand dollars cheaper than the Vespa. It's cute, and you can take it on the freeway if you dare (which, around here, I probably wouldn't do). It's more practical than a pony, at any rate.
I can't remember how it was brought up, but I do know that we all relaxed on a bench while I recounted key scenes from various het porn and near-porn movies that I happen to have committed to memory. In one contextless clip, a Russian girl sprawled on an armchair experiences an intersection with the lower half of an anonymous man and, following a few robotic thrusts, attempts to demonstrate enthusiasm by way of an inflection-free "Yeah, bang."
Really, why use a plain old "yes" when you can say, "Yeah, bang," instead? I did this as often as I could remember to do so for the remainder of the weekend.
Rhi's birthday was Sunday and I, of course, had left her present at my house. We counted sixteen redheads while waiting for a table for breakfast - natural redheads only, not dyed ones - all of whom were women or babies. There was a male child, approximately age 4, but no adult male redheads. My assumption is that Asheville has a lot of Irish, German and Scandinavian settlers in its past, and the heavy emphasis on Riverdance-y music and trinkets in the local shops supports my theory.
~~~
a song: A favorite song from the new CocoRosie album, Noah's Ark, entitled Beautiful Boyz
http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3H8HZTEDKVJZ91VUECHK77SVTQ
I've talked to a minuscule number of people about my project and, even though I'm terrified of scaring characters out of my head if I talk too much about them, I will risk saying that I am happy to be working again. Well over a year ago, a friend suggested that I pursue a storyline that I'd actually been considering, and this outside opinion certainly encouraged me to think that my (extremely) vague notion could be coaxed into some semblance of a good idea. However, it has taken more time than I'd hoped for details to be revealed. Names, places, voices, colors, etc. I know there are many people who are driven batty by the suggestion that a writer's characters are separate and willful beings rather than figments of one's imagination, but after well over 30 years of taking down dictation in story form, I must disagree that willful beings and figments are mutually exclusive.
Mr. G was recently subjected to a long ramble about characters, plot, voice and tense, and was both very patient and very critical (in the classic sense of the word, if you will). He was correct in his opinion that my main character could be easier to dislike than not unless handled with skill and tact. I am short on both skill and tact in the day-to-day world, but I feel much more confident of my abilities on paper and, luckily, because I had considered the points he brought up long before this discussion, I did not cry or throw a tantrum when he implied I might be in over my head. Because, you know, I just might be. But that's the challenge and the fun of the whole thing.
So far as I can tell, there are no "transgenderist" biographies, and I'd actually be surprised if there were. Books on drag queens are fairly easy to come by, though often not very informative. While a lot of drag queens are transsexual, not all transsexuals are drag queens, and tales of the less flamboyant are thin on the bookstore shelves. Also, to my surprise, most personal accounts of transsexuals are shockingly lacking in what seems (to me, anyway) to be the most important information, i.e., when did you DO something about it? "When did you first know you were a ______?" is often a useless question, because it's usually a matter of never NOT knowing. However, if you were born with a dick but always knew you were a girl, there had to be an incident, however outwardly insignificant, when you felt you had crossed a line and would now be unable to cross back.
Earlier this year, I read Mark 947 a memoir by Calpernia Adams, whose relationship with a Marine was the basis for the movie Soldier's Girl. It's a good movie, very tragic and horrifying. I did some research after seeing it, and discovered that Ms. Adams is a Nashville native and lived in my neighborhood while growing up (well, sort of, but I'm not going to draw you a map, for which you should be thankful), and had self-published the above autobiography, which I promptly bought. It's a well-written story, very engaging, and, thankfully, doesn't focus exclusively on her relationship with the Marine. Although the story of her realizing that she was "gay" is told, there's no hint that she was at all interested in being female until...she's working as a drag queen and saving her money for surgery. Maybe it's just too difficult to explain.
I'm currently reading She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan (originally Jim), a novelist and professor who obviously is familiar with writing as a practice. Although she does go into detail about her experience and motivation, the narrative falls oddly flat when she attempts to describe her desire to have a female form. I believe her, certainly, if only because I know she had the surgery, but her description of living with the body/mind disparity that apparently tormented her is peculiarly unconvincing. I'm beginning to think that this particular desire must be experienced for oneself in order to resonate; otherwise, it must be taken on faith. I am skeptical of faith when it comes to religious matters, but I'm finding myself much more tolerant of the concept when it comes to matters of spirit or personal experience.
I am increasingly grateful that I've never felt that I ought to be more properly housed in a male form*, as the whole sex reassignment process seems grueling and alienating, and too often results in large-scale abandonment and rejection just at a time when one is finally able to interact with others as one's true self.
* My inner gay man is a different thing. He is convinced that he has a very large and lovely penis of his own and would adamantly reject anything that a surgeon might cobble together out of whatever puny tissues I have on offer. He is also still on my case re: the Hugo Boss suit he/we could have had for $300 from the Saks outlet and scoffs at my protests detailing the lack of flattering congruity between female ass and male trousers. Which is too bad, as I really liked that suit, also.
~~~
the award for best use of disco song goes to... ...and I segue into a film rec that touches on the subject above: Paris Is Burning, which has only just been released on DVD despite being a hugely popular film at the time of its original release in 1990/1. PIB is a documentary about "ballroom culture" in NYC, i.e., drag competitions focusing on "realness." If you remember Madonna's Vogue, that's about the style of posing/dancing done at the ballroom competitions, and it was her interest in this subculture that led to her hiring a number of dancers from the ballroom community to be part of her Blonde Ambition tour. So, Madonna. Anyway...The competitions take place between houses, such as House of Xtravaganza, House of Chanel International, House of Infiniti, etc., which are essentially families of affinity created by gay men and transgendered women, most of whom were rejected by their biological families. They are also mostly black or Hispanic, raised in poverty, and without formal education. They're also overwhelmingly fixated on brand name luxury goods and their implied social value, which makes for a rather poignant contrast with the fact that most are also working in or on the fringes of the sex trade. Incidentally, I think it has the best use of a disco song on a soundtrack to date (Cheryl Lynn's To Be Real). If you (heart) gay even a little bit, it's well worth renting, at least.
~~~
new age knife fights and a birthday girl: We spent a long weekend with
rhiannonhero and Mr. Rhi in Asheville, NC, which is a relatively "artistic" community, complete with a vegetarian gourmet restaurant and a store that will custom-make your hippie sandals (for a mere $300). It's also, sadly, often the closest (i.e., 500 miles) that many indie bands get to Nashville. On this trip, the three of us who had been before (everyone but Mr. G) were rather surprised to see a larger, younger, and more psychotic/meth-challenged bum community than noted on prior visits. We even got to see a crazy-ass bum fight, complete with brandished knife, feigned apologies, and sneak attack. Along with the bum fight, we got public praise karaoke, which may have incited the violence in the first place. Seriously, no one wants public karaoke of any kind, and certainly not p.k. of an evangelistic nature. A day was spent at the Biltmore House, which is "America's Largest Private Home," previously occupied by the Vanderbilt family. I have been wanting to do the tour for years, so I was very happy to finally be making the trip. Overall, the visit was worth the somewhat ridiculous ticket price ($40 per person for the no-frills ticket), though my favorite parts were the servants' quarters, kitchens, etc. In fact, I found myself longing to take a peon-style house tour using the back stairs and passageways. Despite my profound disinterest in cleaning my own house, the idea of playing upstairs maid for a weekend was more than a little thrilling. Unfortunately, I don't believe the Biltmore House offers such specialized quasi-fetish entertainment - or at least not for a mere $40 ticket.
I had good news and bad news both in a rare/used bookstore: the book that I've been searching for for about a dozen years (Tragic Mansions by Belle Epoque socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig) does exist, but it will cost me about $1600. I was hoping for something in the range of ~$50, so this was a bit of a disappointment. While it was exciting to have a copy actually show up through abebooks.com for the first time ever, I'm not about to
We had good food at every meal. I finally got to have THE salad - the Asian Fusion with the addition of avacado - at The Laughing Seed. You may recall that a couple of years ago I drove all the way to Asheville to 1) meet
tynantblue0162, and 2) have THE salad, but the restaurant was closed that evening due to a hepatitis scare, and my heart was a little bit broken because of this. And, yes, I realize this was crazy behavior, but Chrissy is a really nice girl, and THE salad is really tasty. I've been thinking about THE salad ever since, and, thankfully, it was just as good as I remembered. Mr. Rhi and I drank a bottle of wine and found ourselves very amusing, but apparently our humor did not cross sobriety lines intact. Talked to a nice stranger who answered all of our questions about his mint-green Stella scooter. Right now, I drive the "good" car, a 98 Subaru Forester, which both the Mr. and I love. Mr. G's current car is a creaky mess and has a tempermental manual transmission. Although I learned to drive on a manual, I haven't driven a stick in nearly 20 years and Mr. G doesn't want to teach me (and I really don't want to learn, so we're even). Rather than buy another car at this time, we're thinking a scooter would be good for around-town trips, and if gas is going to hover around $3 a gallon (or even higher), then getting 80-100 mpg for all the short trips I make would be a somewhat brilliant idea. The Stella is made in an old Piaggio factory and is basically the same scoot as a Vespa P-150, but it's about a thousand dollars cheaper than the Vespa. It's cute, and you can take it on the freeway if you dare (which, around here, I probably wouldn't do). It's more practical than a pony, at any rate.
I can't remember how it was brought up, but I do know that we all relaxed on a bench while I recounted key scenes from various het porn and near-porn movies that I happen to have committed to memory. In one contextless clip, a Russian girl sprawled on an armchair experiences an intersection with the lower half of an anonymous man and, following a few robotic thrusts, attempts to demonstrate enthusiasm by way of an inflection-free "Yeah, bang."
Really, why use a plain old "yes" when you can say, "Yeah, bang," instead? I did this as often as I could remember to do so for the remainder of the weekend.
Rhi's birthday was Sunday and I, of course, had left her present at my house. We counted sixteen redheads while waiting for a table for breakfast - natural redheads only, not dyed ones - all of whom were women or babies. There was a male child, approximately age 4, but no adult male redheads. My assumption is that Asheville has a lot of Irish, German and Scandinavian settlers in its past, and the heavy emphasis on Riverdance-y music and trinkets in the local shops supports my theory.
~~~
a song: A favorite song from the new CocoRosie album, Noah's Ark, entitled Beautiful Boyz
http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3H8HZTEDKVJZ91VUECHK77SVTQ
