why being outed sucks, or, please respect my own body knowledge and experience thank you very much

Today I was outed for the first time in a really long time. I mean, I suppose I get "outed" in different ways all the time, people read me as queer, or people mention that I like girls. And that's fine and all. I've just never been outed as a trans person before and really, it was kind of nerve wracking and frustrating on several levels.

One of the placements I interviewed with for LVC called up one of my references asking about "Dylan." Now, it could've been worse. The person he called was luckily the adviser for the lgbta group here. However, she still was not aware that I am trans, and that I am going by Dylan. So I got a voice message from her during class asking me to stop by her office because she had an LVC question. I go by, and she asks me about it, I tell her that yes, I'm planning on transitioning. She proceeds to express shock and disappointment that I would give up being a woman, talking about how I am such a strong woman, that part of the reason she wants me to nanny for Rex is so that he has an example of a "strong, beautiful woman" around. *sigh* I explain to her that I've struggled with this for a long time, and that I am extraordinarily unhappy in my body. She suggested that I wait a few years after college to "find my voice" and that once I get away from "small minded Lutherans" I'll feel more comfortable being a woman, and that women go through cycles and transformations. She also made some comments about trust, and how I won't be trusted as easily as a man. *sigh*

I know she means well, and I know she was saying these things because she does care about me. But honestly I'm a little hurt and a little offended. I know that I am unhappy in my body, and that it's not about having low self-esteem, or wanting privilege. My identity is part of my bodily, lived experience, which is valid and a truth. The fact that I am trans doesn't change my queerness, my politics, my feminism, my activism, or who I am as a person. In particular I wanted to emphasize to her that my feminism is not implicit in having female secondary sex characteristics. I am still perfectly capable of transitioning and being feminist. Yes, I know that being read as a man in society will come with privilege. For me, I'm reading it as more subversive. I am not transitioning for the bonus perks of manhood. Transition can be seen as revealing how little there is between men and women. As I mentioned when I wrote about Max Valerio, transsexuality reveals the tenuous nature of the line between woman and man.

The whole situation reminded me of reading about bodies in Eli Clare's "Exile and Pride." In particular, his discussion of bodies, and how bodies can be home. I understand Eli when he says "home starts here in my body, in all that lies embedded beneath my skin," when he talks about how our culture and class and background are all aspects of our bodies as home. My body was home in my childhood, I felt comfortable and safe in my body. It was at puberty that my body turned on my, and started changing and that was when my body ceased to be completely home. Even today, I fight with my body as home. I know my parts of my body as home, I've learned that directing my frustration at my body itself isn't effective and is detrimental to my health.

I would be remiss if I didn't admit that the mere fact that I will be able to afford transition has class implications. I am white and upper/middle class, and educated. I don't know what it feels like to grow up in a rural community, in a working class community. The fact that I will be able to make my body home, to make my body that bridge, is evidence of my class standing, and I will need to deal with that.

My interaction with the pride adviser was frustrating because I didn't know how to explain to her that I want to be fully home in my body again. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not feel a disconnect between my image of who I am in my head. In the end, I wish I could explain to her that I will finally feel at home in my body when I can take hormones and have surgery, and that it has nothing to do with wanting to not be a woman, or wanting male privilege.

paperweight

I saw the theater/dance piece "paperweight" this evening at Luther, and it was fantastic. The piece really illustrated a lot of the concepts we've been discussing in class, which is expected really since Amanda, the director, has been in class with us. She did a really good job I think of tying the theories and discussions to the movement.

One evident theme in the piece was borders. Crossing physical borders, the borders in the piece change as the performers raised, lowered and shifted paper columns and screens. One scene in particular reminded me of crossing through customs, where there is a doorway of sorts and the performers needed to be inspected before they passed through it.

In addition, a lot of the different sections could be interpreted as different types of border crossings. Crossing deserts, boat crossings, sneaking across borders. In addition, the different types of barriers, from other people, from the environment, from within were evident in the movement. Sometimes the performers would stop one another, slowing each other down, sometimes they would run into walls, sometimes they would stop themselves.

The piece also was open to a lot of different meanings. I interpreted one scene where the performers put on and took off layers of clothing as trying on identity, seeing what fits and what doesn't, trying to fit with society's expectations of how we were supposed to be. On the other hand, I know from the talkback that other audience members saw that as a "preparing to cross into the United States" section.

That example illustrates how the piece was open to a multiplicity of meanings, that there was no one "right" interpretation of what was going on in the piece. On the whole, I could tell that a lot of thought and exploration had gone into the piece, and it was exciting to recognize aspects of our class discussions in what was going on in the performance.

Queer Theory

I feel a special affinity for queer theory whenever we study it in classes. I think it's partially because my first year of college I would go down to the basement of the library to the HQ section (homos and queers) and devour books about LGBT issues that often used a queer lens to view the world. So now reading queer theory always brings back memories of browsing through the stacks, sitting down in the aisle propping my feet up against one shelf and leaning back against another and completely losing track of time.

There are several aspects of queer theory that I really enjoy. For one thing, queer theory has an emphasis on context, and admitting the context that theory and experience grows from. So admitting class, history, cultural influences, personal experience etc. all shape your viewpoint. Part of this is a recognition of multiplicity, that there are many different and valid ways of being and seeing the world. I admire this, I think it allows people to stand where they are but to be able to understand how the world would look differently if they stood in a different position.

In addition, queer theory grew out of a combination of academics and activism. While queer theory can sometimes be complicated and described in complicated language, the basic concepts aren't that difficult to grasp, and many of the ideas of queer theory are already lived on within certain social groups.

Another aspect of queer theory I appreciate is the fact that queer can be a noun, an adjective and verb. Queer as a noun and an adjective are kind of self explanatory. Queer as a verb on the other hand, is one of my favorite usages. To queer, to unfix from prior definition, to shatter preconceptions and rebuild new meanings, to challenge binaries, to challenge who creates knowledge.

One aspect of queer theory that I've struggled with is the notion of identity, labeling and queer theory. I think my current conclusion, after a lot of thought, is that queer theory and labeling aren't necessarily contradictions. Labels can be useful, and I think the point isn't to do away with fixed identity and labels. I think the idea is to challenge identity and labels, and to realize that that's all they are, labels. To admit their use, to use them and then discard them when they are no longer necessary. Of course that's easier said than done.

One downside of queer theory is that it is centered in a western context, and it doesn't really translate to non-western contexts as well. In addition, it was developed mainly by white people. Again, while queer theory does emphasize being grounded in context, it's important to remember the contexts that allowed queer theory to develop.

Postville

We went to Postville this week with my confronting the borders class. We arrived, and walked around town in small groups visiting stores and talking to people. One of the most interesting conversations I had was at the only flower shop in town. We (myself and two of my classmates) ended up talking to the two white women working in the shop. The interesting part of the conversation was when we asked about holidays. One of the women talked about how they do flowers for everyone, for "those Jewish celebrations" and also for the "Mexican" celebrations, "like Cinco se Mayo." Yes, that's right, she completely mispronounced it. The hilarious part was that she then continued to say "I think that's coming up soon, isn't it May 10th?"

We also asked about education, and that also got us a few entertaining responses. We got on to the topic of athletics because we mentioned we were from Decorah and Postville beat Decorah at some high school athletic event recently. One of the women mentioned that there are several Latino wrestlers on the high school team, but that they don't always show up for practice or put in the effort. I asked her why she thought that was the case. Her comment was very insightful. She said it was because the parents didn't push their children or instill the right values of attending practice every day. However, she analyzed her own comment (unknowingly) by stating that when the parents work and their kids need to go home to babysit or to work and make money, they don't always show up for practice.

Another entertaining interaction we had was with a strange old man outside the Guatemalan restaurant. He stopped us and called us "you Decorah people" before proceeding to tell us about how integrated the town is, that there is a Mexican and Guatemalan restaurant, that the "a Taste of Postville" celebration in the summer always brings the community together, and that the kosher grocery store has a very nice selection. He then proceeded to tell us that he had eaten the fried chicken at the Guatemalan restaurant. I could be wrong, but I don't think fried chicken is a Guatemalan specialty. The most interesting topic he talked about was the laundromat connected to "The Sweet Spot," which is an ice cream parlor. He made a comment that it was very good for the immigrants in town because "those people don't have washers and dryers" and that their children can play in the back room that they've got set up with coloring tables and blocks, and that they can get ice cream while they wait. Weird assumptions made on many counts.

On the whole, the town is a pretty fascinating mix of Hasidic Jews, white rural Iowans, and immigrant workers from Eastern Europe and Latin America. I kind of hope that a more updated book gets written than the one that was written in the 1990s. I feel like a lot has changed in the world since then, and that the United States obsession/fear with/of terrorism and immigrants probably had a significant affect on the town.

Alejandra Pizarnik

I really loved the poems of Alejandra Pizarnik. They were absolutely beautiful. I wish that I knew Spanish so that I could read them in their original language, not just translations. One of the poems that struck me the most was the following:

"like a poem buried in
the silence of things
you speak to ignore me"

I felt this poem could be applied to many different situations. Relationships, where one person is always talking over the other person, where whoever has the power to talk first and longest has more power overall. It also reminded me of the power that the United States exerts over the rest of the world. How the military spouts off the doctrine of aiding and assisting Iraqi citizens, in particular when they talk about helping women get out of abusive situations while quieting down the stories of American soldiers raping Iraqi women. Of the fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giformer School of the Americas, now WHINSEC, where the US military trains guerilla soldiers from Latin American countries in tactics and torture, then send them back to their countries where they rape, murder and upset the rightful governments and install puppet dictatorships. The US military denies all of the wrongful actions the graduates of this school have done, and have refused to acknowledge all of the death and carnage they have perpetuated by training these soldiers.

I'm sure I could go on and think of situations where one party that has power uses language, uses the power of speaking over another to silence those around them. The question that comes to mind for me is then how do you speak up when you don't have as much power? I think as with most other goals of activism, it's a question of critical mass. You need to build up enough people, enough collective power to make yourself heard.

One aspect of the poetry reading that I didn't enjoy as much were the poems of Susan Bassnett. I found her actual poetry to be clunky and heavy-handed, especially in contrast to Pizarnik's poetry.. The metaphors and the topics of the poems were kind of boring. I also found it problematic that Bassnett claimed this close connection to a woman who lived in a very different situation. Not because of their different experiences, but because they never actually meet and the level of closeness that Bassnett described was presumptuous. It seemed too much like western white feminists saying they know what the best way to advocate for women's rights in all other countries and contexts.

against, into, through

I have been feeling conflicted about the movement exercises we did in class. We did several different exercises, on the floor, against the wall. Mainly just moving, seeing how our bodies felt as we moved with our eyes closed. For one thing, I've been menstruating this week which is always challenging for me. Usually I can maintain a distance, a division between my mental being and my physical being, but menstruation always has this tendency to pull me back into my body. It's always intellectually complicated for me, because I feel like I shouldn't be as concerned about menstruating. It's a biological fact, and there's really nothing to be done about it for now.

In the same manner, the movement exercises also kept seeming to push me back into my body. I think it's partially because the exercises made me more aware of having breasts, and they kept feeling like they were getting in the way, moving in ways I didn't want them to. Which really means moving in any way that reminds me they are there. My drawing that I did reflects this actually, I drew a black form that represents my body as I see, as I wish it would be, while the red curves I drew represent my body as it is. It was interesting, because while other students in the class shared that it was easier and more comfortable with their eyes closed because they were able to shut off their external view of themselves, it was more difficult for me. I think this is partially because keeping my eyes open allows me to maintain my self-image of my body without feeling completely in my body. Closing my eyes and focusing on how my body moved was incredibly uncomfortable at times.

On the other hand, my discomfort is a good illustration of my struggle with embodiment and borders. The exercise in pushing against the wall, into the wall, through the wall was actually pretty illuminating. A lot of times I feel like I'm pushing against myself when it might be more constructive, healthier, to conceptualize my struggle with my body as pushing into myself, becoming myself.

After class I was thinking about the similarities between "Nervous Conditions" and the exercises we did. For one thing, Nyasha and Tambu both experience a schism between their lives as Africans, as women, and as students. Nyasha's experience in particular seemed parallel. Nyasha struggles more than Tambu because she lived in England when she was young, and saw the complications between colonization, education, globalization and being a woman and how these affected her own experience. She was constantly pushing against her father, against the social expectations placed on her, against her own expectations of herself. However, for both Tambu and Nyasha it isn't as easy as learning to push into their obstacles. When Tambu goes to the mission and then the integrated school it's evident that assimilation is not the best method, but staying at the homestead wasn't an option either. Basically, no matter what they do, Nyasha, Tambu and their relatives are all bound to struggle because of the forces of colonization, globalization and development active in their lives.

African Feminism

This week we've been reading and discussing African feminisms. I've really enjoyed the discussions and readings so far, partially because I compared African feminisms to western feminisms for my LCCT research paper when I was in Tanzania, and partially because it has made me rethink and question some of my definitions.

One particular aspect of the reading that I enjoyed was the notion of sisterhood, and how sisterhood is a western metaphor for feminism. In African feminisms, the metaphor that is used more often is motherhood. At first I didn't really understand this. But then one of the readings explained that in western nuclear family structure, sisterhood means alliances against the oppression of the father because the mother is aligned with the father. In African contexts, co-mothering and motherhood is a shared experience by many women.

Personally, the concept of motherhood, the identity of mother has never been appealing to me. In fact, the idea of being a mother forces me to be think too fully in the female body that I don't like having. But I understand how the rhetoric of motherhood can be powerful.

Here I think the concept of intellectual imperialism is useful, because it shows how western feminism has attempted to transcribe western feminist ideas onto other contexts. It's not useful for building coalition between international feminist movements, and we need to recognize that it happens in order to deconstruct and then rebuild the relationships between western and non-western feminists. Along with this is remembering that what western feminists care about and how western feminists construct gender relations is very different than how gender is constructed in the rest of the world.

sneakers, jeans and imperialism

Several things. They're a little disjointed, and that's ok. First, I hate how difficult it is to be aware of where my clothes and "stuff" is coming from. I can't always buy fair trade clothing, and I can't even know that when factories say the working conditions are good, and their workers are getting paid decently and getting breaks and being treated like human beings. Second, I don't know how to adequately argue against people who, like Nike, argue that they are providing jobs to people in the countries their factories are in. Nevermind the fact that these factories come in, completely change and alter the economic and social structure of the area, and then leave and often demolish what economic structure had been built up around the factory. Or the fact that companies build their factories where the labor is cheapest, don't allow the workers to unionize, etc.

Another issue that came up for me in class this week. The fact that the women of the Kabul Beauty School are facing new risks, and the author of the book has left and has no intention of returning to Kabul, and hasn't shared the profits of her New York Times bestseller with the women who she wrote the book about. The link will take you to an NPR story that a classmate of mine shared, if you're interested. How can Debbie Rodriguez rationalize her actions? She went to Kabul, built trust and friendships with these women, and used them to write a book, and now isn't planning on ever returning, and hasn't shared any of the profits with them? That's not right.

Finally, western feminists need to stop talking down to women in the rest of the world. We are not the be all, end all of feminist knowledge. We only know our experience firsthand, and need to shut up and listen to the experiences of others. Cynthia Enloe's writing about the gendered empire shows that women the western world stereotypes as "oppressed and helpless" are oppressed, yes, but it's not our place to articulate that oppression for the women who actually know what it's like.
I think it boils down to a respect for lived experience, for personal knowledge and understanding of your own life. In this respect, I don't know if western feminism is really all that useful to anyone who's not working in a western context.

Cracking India

This week we discussed the novel Cracking India
I think what bothered me the most about the book and the movie was the fact that before the British, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs lived together in relative peace. It was only after the British pulled out, and divided the country up that the fierce fighting and slaughter began.

It's scary, a lot of people in the United States don't even know that Pakistan and India used to be the same country, and the partition happened less than 100 years ago. It shows an extreme sense of ethnocentrism on the part of America. But then again, many Americans don't keep up on many global political events. Many Americans don't know about the IMF or the World Bank, and if they do, they often don't understand how structural adjustment programs end up putting nations further into debt rather than helping the country build the necessary infrastructures they need.

The Century Project

On Monday I went to see the Century Project for class. If you ever have a chance to see this exhibit, you should. Basically, it's naked portraits of women from birth to 100. The exhibit starts with a photograph of a baby girl's head crowning as she's being born, and then goes chronologically through different women's photos. Each photo also has a written statement by or about the woman.

One of the first thoughts the exhibit invoked in me was the sheer resilience of women and women's bodies. Women go through a lot of shit in life. Sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse, disconnection from their bodies, eating disorders, etc. But even so, women are resilient. In some ways the exhibit was saddening because of all of the women who had been abused and hurt, but in other ways, I found a lot of the portraits to be reclamations of their selves, their dignity.

One interesting point that was brought up in class was whether the portraits were nude or naked. Amanda pointed out that nudes tend to be docile, art for consumption by the "male gaze" while naked implies action and self-ownership. In Chandra Mohanty's article, she talks about the fact that in order to build something new, we first need to deconstruct the old. In this light, I think Frank Cordelle's photos are doing both. They are helping to deconstruct and show that the view of women in media and art has been false and doesn't tell the whole story or let women be their imperfect but beautiful selves. And the photos also build something new, a new way of viewing women, a new way of women having agency in their bodies.

I also think that the photography relates well to how Mohanty criticizes Western feminism for collapsing all women's experience into one larger experience. Clearly, from the Century Project we see that even in the United States, women have many different experiences that can't be reduced to one description of "women's experience."

Unrelated to the Century Project, I think that Mohanty is right when she criticizes Western feminists for placing boxes around "non-Western women" and assuming that they live under oppression, and that they don't know how to theorize about their oppression. So what do we do. What do I do as a white, Western, feminist tranny? What can I say or do that will help and not harm, something that will attempt to heal, or at least to acknowledge and to break down the bullshit surrounding colonialism and empire. And this is where I'm stuck. Right now, I think all I can do is keep educating those around me about colonialism, to try and make my friends and family realize that "those people" aren't less intelligent or less human than us, to show how the economic policies of the West have shaped the global context in a not so nice way. To continue with the border metaphor, to push the borders of understanding of the people around me.

burning bridges

I really struggled with Max Valerio's article from This Bridge We Call Home. To start with, the article hits close to home for me. I also identify as trans, though in a very different way than Max does. Max identifies very much as a man , and a heterosexual man at that. Max's obsession with masculinity seems to be an obsession with hegemonic masculinity.

And this type of masculinity, and his embodiment of masculinity honestly scares me. And maybe it's partially because I haven't taken testosterone yet. Maybe it's because I don't know what the physical changes actually feel like. I feel like Max went from one end of a spectrum to another, and I'm worried that I would do the same.

It's actually one of my biggest fears about transitioning, losing some of the aspects of myself that I like. But then again, maybe I've read his experience wrong. I understand the difficulty of letting go of a prior identity, of letting going of being dyke, lesbian, whatever you want to call it. As Max wrote, "the transition from female to male completely and entirely changed not only my physical body, but also my most closely held values and deepest perceptions." I don't think anyone would be able to approach an experience that will potentially change their "most closely held values and deepest perceptions."

Another aspect of the article that I found challenging was the fact that transsexuality itself shows the bridge (to use Anzaldua's metaphor) between female and male, yet after he's transitioned, Max almost disregards that bridge. He also doesn't really talk about having privilege. He does, but he also sidesteps when talking about privilege. I understand that trans-people completely lose their privilege when they get discovered, but when you pass for most of the time, even if you are freaking out about being discovered, you are still passing, which means you've got privilege.

Even so, I also don't want to disregard Max's experience. This is his life, and how he experiences it and how he interprets it is valid, I have no bearing on its validity. Just because I'm uncomfortable about parts of it doesn't mean it's not right or true. And who knows, it's entirely possible that testosterone will completely change how I see the world as well. And while that is a really scary proposition right now, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.