It’s Great to be Heard

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alabaster box, arrogance, Beelzebub, Caitlyn Jenner, Christ, Cost, Elinor Burkett, faith, false accusations, female, Feminism, gender assigned at birth, gender roles, girlhood, God, grammar school, Jesus, Joy Ladin, Judge, Laverne Cox, Lili Elbe, LinkedIn, loss, Luke 7:37-50, male privilege, Matthew 12:24-27, MTF, New York Times, Orthodox Jewish, pay the price, prostitute, public speaking, salvation, Salvation Army, sinner, stealth mode, stereotyping, TDOR, TED talk, TERF, The Danish Girl, timbrels, Time Magazine, trans feminine, trans man, trans masculine, Trans woman, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, Transgender, transgender children, Transition, Vanity Fair, Woman, Yeshiva University

In November 1991, a dear brother in Christ introduced me to the worldwide ministry that I have been associated with for most of my life since then.  Ken is still alive in his late 80’s and to my surprise and delight, remains in my corner to this day.  I visit him and his wife as often as I can and we either go out to eat together or share a meal at their table.  Early on, Ken and Dolores became my spiritual parents, seeing that I was a relatively new believer at the time.

As Ken got older, I became aware of a standard greeting he would have.  Whether it was me or someone else, we would often say hello with a familiar “It’s good to see you, Ken.”  Invariably, his reply would be, “It’s good to be seen.”  With advancing age, you grow in appreciation of each day the Lord has given you.

Having recently watched Joy Ladin’s TED talk based on Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech, and mindful that it was Joy who suggested I start this blog, it brought to mind that when you are part of a marginalized group, it is also good to be heard.  Joy provided a major encouragement to come out of my planned stealth mode after I took the bold step of transitioning to live full-time as a woman in November 2012.  Here was a person whose memoirs had been published, who was giving interviews on NPR and had overcome barriers at an ultra-conservative bastion of gender norms: an Orthodox Jewish institution, Yeshiva University.  And she felt I had ideas and perspectives worthy of sharing with the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0K2YvvQyEw (Link to Joy Ladin’s TED talk)

Since I started my blog, I have grown in confidence to share my views on LinkedIn, participate in a monthly meeting in my county that introduces and discusses transgender issues with cisgender professionals, speak to classes at two different colleges, and in November 2015 (there’s that month again!) speak at a TDOR observance (and post it on You Tube).  Aware that this has a double meaning for many of us in the transgender community, it is good to be read.  And it is good for my message to be heard.

Now there are many voices in the world, and in this Internet Age of You Tube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, a multitude of sites on which to hear them.  Never before has most of the world had such access to those voices.  Let’s face it: many of those voices are not supportive of transgender people.  If that was not the case, Joy could concentrate on doing the things she loves: teaching, writing poetry and spending time with people near and dear to her.  It is the need to speak out against opposition and oppression that motivates Joy and others in the transgender community to divert precious time away from the things we love.

In her TED talk, Joy mentioned a couple of people who have spoken in opposition to her testimony of having a female gender identity.  As much as it saddens me, I have come to expect it from the extreme religious right-wing (even though I have not given up on changing hearts and opinions over time).  But it also hurts when other women (in particular, a portion of the feminist community) do not accept my identity as real and valid.

In part, Joy’s TED talk was in response to Elinor Burkett’s article in the Opinion section of the NY Times Sunday Review, titled “What Makes a Woman?”  Joy mentioned a woman with views representative of what has become known as Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERF).  Those of us who are MTF are told by this group that we have no right to define the meaning of “woman” because we have not endured periods, childbirth, or female socialization, while also having enjoyed male privilege for much of our life.  While being accused by the right-wing religionists of being effeminate sexual deviants, the radical feminists accuse us of male arrogance to think we can define who women are, be better women than “real” women, and invade women only spaces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html

Joy points out that like most of us who are MTF, we have paid a tremendous price to do what we are accused of by the TERF community.  We have given up any male privilege we might have had (and not all of us had it or wanted it), lost jobs, been rejected by immediate family and our places of worship, risked our health, depleted our savings and more.  And we did these things long before getting members of our community on the cover of Time and Vanity Fair, or receiving top modeling assignments.  We did it at a time of experimental surgeries (e.g. Lili Elbe), complete disassociation with our former life for most of us, mockery, denunciation, and worse.  Even today, we still face a disproportionate amount of murder, violence and harassment.  Quite a price to pay for so-called male arrogance (which, if we are truly female in spirit, we don’t possess in the first place), no?

Those of us who transitioned in adult life have finally gained authenticity, but we lost so much to get there.  Playing an assigned role, we lost our own selves, the life we would have led, and even experiencing periods and childbirth.  Just as the transgender community has a right to be heard, so does the TERF community.  But it grieves me that they don’t understand that MTF’s have lost far more than we may have gained by living a portion of our adult life as male.  For every MTF who has been successful in transition, dozens more are underemployed, bullied into suicide or murdered.  But even with those who have been successful, what price can be put on giving up being oneself for so long?

Here are two personal stories that happened to me recently that show what I lost and can never get back because I was assigned with a male gender at birth.  The first is serendipitous.

My hair stylist retired back in October.  She recommended the husband and wife team that she uses.  Through an amazing sequence of events, I found out that the wife was my classmate for three years in grammar school over 50 years ago.  After being grateful that I was accepted, not kicked out of the salon, I realized how little I knew about her and most of my female classmates at that age.  I remembered the names, but that was just about it, while I remember many details about the boys in my class.  I also remembered the scorn heaped by both boys and girls on the boys who tried to cross the gender line in any way.  To my loss, I learned quickly and stayed on the side assigned to me.

The second story is associated with my church.  During one of the Sundays in Advent, we had a service featuring the precious young children showing various things they had learned that year.  But what really caught my eye were the little girls (about age 6-8) doing timbrels.  They looked like they were having so much fun.  I remarked as such to the woman sitting next to me that day, a good friend who knows about my past.  She replied that it is a lot of fun, sort of like cheerleading with musical instruments.

My mind flashed back to June.  I was watching the graduation ceremony for new Salvation Army officers.  At one point, girls were doing timbrels.  Suddenly, some of the high-ranking women officers got up and started doing timbrels, too.  They all had such joy on their faces.  That day in December, I suddenly realized why.  They were remembering back to their girlhood and all the wonderful experiences they had.  I never can have those experiences.  But some people see people like me as being selfish and arrogant.  They don’t understand that what we have lost in life is irreplaceable: not what I define as female experience but what women and girls choose as female experience.

If trans women are guilty of male arrogance, how do you explain trans men?  Are they arrogant women claiming to be better men than cisgender males?  Are they redefining male identity?  Or are they, like anyone who is truly transgender, simply saying that this is who I am?  And who I am came before surgery, hormones or change in presentation.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that there is another group that TERF’s cannot explain by their anti-transgender judgments: the young transgender children who have come forward to assert their true gender identity.  How much male privilege has a pre-school child experienced?  How are they demonstrating a motive to redefine female?  Would you go so far as to accuse these precious little ones of invading female only spaces?  And how do you explain the young trans masculine children?

One of the things that comforts me is knowing that Jesus also endured false accusations.  Here is one that is particularly relevant.

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. – Matthew 12:24-27

The irony is that part of the feminist movement was a reaction to the stereotyping of women.  TERF’s do not see that they are just as guilty in stereotyping trans women.  Although trans women comprise a tiny percentage of the population, we are remarkably diverse in viewpoints, interests, gender roles and gender expression.  Like any group, we have honorable representatives and dishonorable ones.

Ultimately, I can only speak for myself.  There are only two who truly know my heart: me and God.  No one else knows the shame I once felt.  No one else knows the cost of the oil in my alabaster box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ls8ZfeBmHA

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet,  would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. – Luke 7:37-50

God bless,

Lois

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A Dream Deferred … or Worse

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1965, Bethlehem, birth of Jesus, Blacks, Canada, Charlie Brown, Christ, Christians, Christmas, city of David, deferred, denied, discrimination, Dodger Stadium, Dodgers, dreams, Duke Snider, Frontline, Gender Dysphoria, ghetto, God, Growing Up Trans, hatred, Holy Spirit, hope, hopelessness, Isaiah 9, Jackie Robinson, Jews, John Roseboro, Langston Hughes, Light in darkness, Linus, Los Angeles, Luke 2:8-14, Maury Wills, Messianic prophesy, Ontario, parents, Paul McHugh, PBS, Proverbs 13:12, research, social science, study, suicide, supportive, TDOR, throne of David, trans masculine, Transgender, Transition, violence, Watts riots, Willie Crawford, World Championship, youth

This is my 100^th post.  Thank you for your encouragement.

This is a story that begins about fifty years ago, jumps to the present and finishes with events many centuries ago.

When I was in college, majoring in government, it was a few years after the Watts riots.  As a 12 year old in 1965, all I knew about the riots was that black people had begun to react to the discrimination they experienced with violence: looting and burning commercial buildings, shooting at firemen trying to put out the flames.  And I knew that there were times when the smoke was visible about 8 miles due north at Dodger Stadium.  At times, the smoke moved over the stadium and the smell hung over the ballpark.  When the games were played during the riots, attendance suffered in the midst of a tight pennant race.  Fans were offered rain checks in case they were too afraid to attend the home games that week.

It was an event that took away some of the luster of the Dodgers World Championship season, although when you are 12, you try to focus on the game and team you love.  These players were my heroes.  It didn’t matter what color they were.  After Duke Snider was sold to the Mets and then retired, my favorite player was Maury Wills.  I was prejudiced … in favor of the “little” players.  (Wills is black.)

It affected the team directly as well.  Willie Crawford, still a teenager, was a young black player from the curfew area who had signed for a $100,000 bonus the previous year when he graduated from high school.  He was mistakenly arrested, one of the 4000 people arrested during the week-long rioting.  Catcher John Roseboro spent a night sitting on the front stoop of his house with a gun, when protestors marched past his house.  Although very few residences were targeted, it was a tense and volatile time and no one could be sure what would happen.

Some black players drove to and from the park in their uniforms, hoping it would spare them problems from rioters and police.  Some had routes to the park that took them through the affected area.  Some white team members watched National Guardsmen patrolling in their neighborhood.

Former Dodger Jackie Robinson offered this assessment of the cause of the riots:

“Riots do not happen because … a crowd seeks to restrain an officer from making an arrest.  Riots begin with the hopelessness which lives in the hearts of a people who, from childhood, expect to live in rundown houses, to be raised by one parent, to be denied proper recreation, to attend an inferior school, to experience police brutality, to be turned down when seeking a decent job.”

By the time Robinson passed away in October 1972, social scientists had refined their understanding of the riots.  While the riots started in Watts and its name was attached to them, they spread beyond the 4 square miles of Watts into other black impoverished neighborhoods, about 50 square miles in all.  Researchers expected that the instigation of the riots came from the very worst areas.  They were wrong. The primary fomenters of the riots came from the edge of the black ghetto.  The explanation offered was that those in the very worst areas were so affected with hopelessness, there was no incentive to initiate action.  (This does not mean that they didn’t participate once the riots started.)

The neighborhoods along the edge were somewhat better.  But they were still inside and that last leap out of the ghetto to the more affluent white neighborhoods a short distance away seemed to be always just out of reach.  Looking back at riots two months later, the Los Angeles Times interviewed a 46-year-old black father of six, and quoted him saying, “If I ever made enough money, I would move out of Watts like all the other big shots. So I’m here, so what the hell. Los Angeles isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Wherever you go, you’re black – that’s all there is to it.”

Over forty years since college, I still remember that lesson learned about riots being fueled by a combination of hopelessness and the prize always just out of reach.  It was a lesson that came back to me when I heard the 300 names read at TDOR last month.  Something different caught my eye.  Acknowledging that it is too soon to show a trend, I still searched for an explanation.  It was the lesson of Watts that came back to me.

At the TDOR where I spoke in November, the program committee has adopted a broad definition as to which transgender people and allies to honor and remember as “victims of hate, intolerance, ignorance and prejudice during the past year.”  Therefore, we have been including the names of those who were bullied and harassed into committing suicide.  This year, the number of suicides, the majority of which occurred in the United States, seemed higher this year.  Especially notable was the number of trans masculine teens who committed suicide.  What had previous appeared to be nonexistent was now significant.  I was at once intrigued, saddened and puzzled by this development at a time we appear to be making solid progress in helping trans youth.

The next day at another TDOR event, I watched the video “Growing Up Trans” (originally aired 6 months ago on PBS’s Frontline).  While the vast majority of the parents were supportive (albeit with reasonable questions and concerns about the appropriate way to be supportive of their child), one father was resistant to helping his child transition out of sincere concern for his child’s future welfare.  This trans masculine teen was already punching holes in walls at times out of frustration.  It appeared that the documentary would end with the impasse unresolved.

But then, an unfilmed postscript was added.  A voiceover noted that this teen had been suspended from school for starting a fight.  The student he attacked had just begun taking prescription testosterone.  It was at that point that the father agreed to the let his child begin to take cross-gender hormones.

It’s not my purpose to address whether or not the father did the right thing.  I am shining a light on a level of frustration so great that it would cause an attack on one of the very people this teen should have related to the most.

This 85 minute film is still available online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/growing-up-trans/

The pieces were coming together.  One more bit of evidence that came my way soon afterwards would make things crystal clear.  There was a study done in 2012 of 433 trans youth 16-24 years old who live in Ontario, Canada.  The parents of these trans youth were categorized as either very supportive (34%), somewhat supportive (25%), or either not very or not at all supportive (42%).  By many measures of mental health and life conditions, those trans youth who saw their parents as very supportive were statistically significantly better off than those trans youth whose parents were only somewhat supportive, not very supportive or not at all supportive.

For those who prefer text to charts, the well supported trans youth were more than twice as likely to be satisfied with life (72% to 33%), approaching five times more likely to have very good or excellent mental health (70% to 15%), more than twice as likely to have very good or excellent physical health (66% to 31%), about five times as likely to have high self-esteem (64% to 13%), more than three times less likely to have symptoms of depression (23% vs 75%), about half as likely to have considered suicide in the past year (34% vs 70%) and over 14 times less likely to have attempted suicide in the past year (4% vs 57%).

Perhaps the saddest statistic of all for those whose parents offer lukewarm to no support is the finding that well supported trans youth were more than twice as likely to be living in adequate housing (100% vs 45%).  There may be no clearer statistic to show that while a young person’s view of parental support may appear subjective, adequate housing is a very objective measure of how parental support is demonstrated.  Truly supportive parents either allow their trans children to remain at home or they provide continued support for their trans children to make it through the educational system until they can begin their career and find adequate housing of their own.   Parents who provide either lukewarm or no support at all appear to be either kicking their children out of the house or driving them out with abuse (including verbal), bullying and harassment.

For those who prefer charts, I have provided them here.  (There is also some additional information in them.  It appears that those who considered suicide in the past year should also be listed as having a statistically significant difference.)

For those who want to see the full report, here is the link:

http://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf

The survey results are part of the light that exposes the lies of Dr. Paul McHugh and others who claim that transition is ineffective in dealing with gender dysphoria and transgenderism in general.  It is diametrically opposed to their claims that the lives of those who transition are not improved by doing so.  This shows that the level of support for the transition is as significant as transition itself.

But what about the 2/3 whose parents are not strong in their support?  How do they react when they see transgender peers progressing towards life in their target gender, but their progress appears to be denied?

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. – Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred is not hope denied, but when a person reaches the point where it appears that one’s desires will never come, heart sickness can and has become fatal.  Impatience is typical of most youth, and it magnifies hopelessness.

Many trans youth will draw hope from the success of their peers that someday it will be their turn.  Any meaningful progress will stir the fires of the optimism of youth.  But when progress is not only stalled but crushed, it is more than a dream deferred.  It becomes a dream denied.  Many years ago, mindful of his first-hand experience in a different marginalized group, Langston Hughes wrote the poem that inspired the title of this blog post, and was in turn inspired in part by Proverbs 13:12.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

To avoid these results, especially dreams exploding inward, we need to find a way to reach those trans youth whose parents are found wanting in support.  We need to keep their hopes and dreams alive, not crushed or dried up by hate and ignorance, not rotten and diseased by those who would prey on them and steal their dream, not covered over by vacant smiles hiding a time bomb.  If necessary, each one reach one.

We leapt from fifty years ago to today.  While keeping our finger in today, we leap back in time many centuries to the prophet Isaiah.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. – Isaiah 9:2,7-8

There is a group of people who have persevered for over 2700 years to keep that hope alive through many trials, tribulations, hardships, heartaches and tears.  I am one of the members of a different group: a group whose people have hope because we believe that this prophesy was fulfilled two thousand years ago by the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  My relationship with God, the love of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit was the number one reason for the success of my transition, especially during those times when I was pretty much going it alone as far as people from my former life being supportive.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. – Luke 2:8-14

And that’s why people find hope in Christmas, Charlie Brown!

God bless,

Lois