Do you know a transgender person? Do you know that you know a transgender person? Chances are you do, whether you know it or not. Many transgender fly under the radar where they can live their lives away from constant scrutiny. More and more they are getting a voice to speak about equality--toilets are the new water fountains, the right to die for their country not a given.
Once upon a time, I had a friend, she was a girl, and she had a sister and four brothers. My friend was a girly girl much like me--even though I was a TomBoy and sport all the scars to prove it. I remember always grouping her sister with her brothers with only a slight distinction between the five. Years go by and I hear that her sister transitioned and now she had 5 brothers. I wasn't surprised, it seemed to make sense. And then when I saw her brother, it clicked that he looked comfortable in his skin in a way that he never had as her sister.
One of the best books I have read this year is Laurie Frankel's: This Is How It Always Is. I wasn't sure what I expected but I found an often funny, at times poignant account of a family trying to support their son who at five years old announces that when he grows up he wants to be a girl. Frankel has a transgender child but insists that this is not a biographical account of her family. However, the emotional accounting of raising a child transgender must be hers, it is too authentic to be otherwise.
To be honest, I do not think that there is anyone transgender in my immediate orbit--I would hope that if there were that they would feel comfortable sharing their truth with me. But outside of my immediate universe there have always been transgenders. My friend's brother as recounted above, my local Starbuck's regular and living around the world.
In Japan they are often known as Okama: "Okama" (or "o-kama") is Japanese slang for "gay man", particularly in reference to very effeminate gays. The word can also mean "drag queen." It is not always considered insulting, and drag performers will sometimes even use it in reference to themselves. And in Hawaii as Mahu: Word originating in ancient Hawaii and around Polynesia for a third-gendered person, that is, not male nor female, but both or neither.In pre-contact Hawaii (before white explorers and missionaries brought their homophobia with them), mahus were considered special and assumed respected and traditional roles within the communities.
In San Francisco the corner across from my resident hotel the first month I was there, was where the transvestite hookers plied their trade.
The first time I shared a bathroom with transvestite, I was a bit surprised and it took me a few seconds to process but I just shrugged and went about my business. My thought was She sees herself as a woman, so why shouldn't she be in the women's restroom, would it make her feel awkward to be in the men's? I still don't quite understand what all the ballyhoo is about in this issue. But a great Ted Talk by Ivan Cayote, helped me see the broader picture of the gender neutral restroom/closed individual stall question. But again, I am somewhat nonplussed by why this is a big issue. But then again, I am one that is more than willing to highjack a men's restroom if the line is ridiculously long for the women's, so maybe I'm not the most reliable although perhaps the most rational person to weigh in on the issue.
What I like about Frankel's book is that it gives me a better understanding of a family dynamic that I have no direct knowledge of. The heartache that a parent must feel knowing that their beautiful child has a greater than 40% vs. 4.6% rate of attempting suicide, let alone all the potential violence that comes their way for living their lives openly. To tell the truth, until I read This Is How It Always Is, I never thought about a transgender child growing up. Of course you know who you are from a young age, just as I know my first crush on a boy came at about 5 years old and that although, I didn't particularly relish wearing dresses all the time--they got in the way of climbing trees--I did love them on occasion. I also know that I went about my playtime differently than my brothers, cousins, and neighbors did--as I grew up as the only girl amongst many boys. Just as both of my brothers had dolls and I had a cap gun, we interfaced with the world in an entirely different fashion. [There goes my liberal mother raising her children, again] So of course transgender adults were transgender children once who at some point finally decided to stop being the round peg trying to fit in a square hole. Or perhaps, as is being increasingly common, they never had to try to fit and have a family that is working with society and institutions to ensure that they peg and hole match. But it is a heart rending path that these family must travel and Frankel does an excellent job of gathering others into transgender narrative.
I applaud all the advances that are happening in the US--Danica Roem's becoming the first openly transgender state representative in Virginia. The halt on the ban of openly transgenders in the military. Notice the word openly--here's the thing transgenders have always been among us and they have not always had the flamboyancy of a Rue Paul or a Caitlin Jenner. They have been living their lives as either a man or woman checking you out at the grocery store, doing your taxes, taking care of your pets or family, protecting you or serving you dinner and you have never known the difference. But the difference of them being able to openly tell you so, means the world to them.
In many places and in many times, gender is not/was not/has never been binary. The natural world rarely operates strictly in a binary fashion, so I have to wonder why we humans are constantly trying to go against nature to make it so.