March/April 1998

Twenty The official Newsletter of The XX Club March/April 1998 Table Of Contents
It's April and It's Raining Men!!!
What I Did on My Spring Break
GenderPAC: Transgender Activism in DC
Hothead Talks Trash About Gender at Arts Festival

It’s April, and It’s Raining MEN !!! Welcome to Spring in Southern New England, to which onetime Hartford resident referred in saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” Changable as it may be, one thing is always a mainstay of this season, and that is rain, and lots of it. This spring, we are also thrilled to note the increasing participation of FTMs in Twenty, and in the TS world in general, as their visibility, as well as acceptance, has been steadily growing both in the TS and the LGBT communities.
Speaking personally, as an MTF, I have, like most of my peers, found it all too easy to ignore the plight, and even the existence, of FTMs. Frankly, I had met almost none, and knew none beyond mere passing until just a couple years ago. For that ignorance I apologize, and let this be part of my pennance.
During Brown University’s LGBTA’s several fora last month (see related article), I was exposed to the reality of FTMs in a way that I had not been before, and was particularly moved by the young FTMs I met in the collegiate community. For while at their age they enjoy an unusually tolerant social environment (as compared to that typically experienced by MTFs), they understand that their battle, in the long run, is a lot harder than that of any MTF.
In the short film documentary of Frisco FTM Max Valerio, Max is riveting in his description of what he has been through so far, and poignant in how far he has to go. “You don’t do this to fit in, because you will never fit in. Even if no one else can tell, you will always know. This is about being honest.”
Shortly later, he errs somewhat in comparing financial burdens, saying that SRS for MTFs is “maybe five thousand, at the most”. In fact, $5000 is the botton end, and it can be as high as $20K or even higher, depending upon specific procedure, various elective extras, and complicating factors.
But Max has no misunderstandings of what he himself must face eventually, in pinning the cost of SRS for FTMs at $50,000 or even more. This is the stark, brutal reality that sharply defines the practical differences between MTFs and FTMs.
The average MTF, given no special needs or wants, can have adequate SRS for less than the cost of a new car. The average FTM, given the same conditions, could have adequate surgery for the cost of a small house.
Add to that the fact that FTMs require much more extensive surgery in two totally separate procedures (‘top’ and ‘bottom’), and that there are far fewer surgeons performing either of these, and it quickly becomes apparant that FTMs are that rare social phenomenon, a minority within a minority.
Consider how marginalized sexual minorites are in society (15% at most in real numbers), and how marginalized TS/TGs are within the LGBT community (about 1:30K of the general population). As FTMs represent only one percent of all clinical transsexuals (or 1:3M of the general population), it’s no wonder no one seems to notice them, even among transsexuals.
I had become concerned that FTMs might not feel welcome and valued in groups like Twenty, and I am absolutely delighted that not only have we more than just MTFs, but enjoy the regular participation and support of FTMs. I still catch the occasional remark flying about which essentially maligns men, and I know that this will eventually abate as we come to realize that there are men, terrific men, right here among us, and that they have much to offer us and share with us.
Likewise, we must remember that they need our support, even more than we need each other’s, and so I implore all of you to join me in exclaiming, this spring, and henceforth:
It’s raining MEN — Hallelujah !!!
wess

What I Did On My Spring Break: Brown’s Trans-Positive Celebration
Among the other annual hallmarks of spring is the traditional exodus of New England’s collegiates to parts warmer. Another growing tradition is the proliferation of LBGT-themed celebrations, and ivy-covered Brown University is no exception, although their approach this year certainly distinguishes them.
While most colleges are content to kick out a nice rally, some good speakers and guests, and, of course, the requisite dance, Brown’s LGBTA expanded this tried-and-true formula into a month-long symposium of numerous fora, “A Queer and Pleasant Danger” on a wide range of topics, most of which examined ‘crossroads’ in queer issues, such as race, class, ethnicity, and walks of life, peppered with a healthy dose of eye candy (not a little of which at the aforementioned dance).
And while I had never even heard of a student-run event that discussed TS/TG issues, this one had several that included or focused on such issues, some as the primary topic. Two in particular demand description.
The first was a panel discussion on what it’s like to be transsexual and out as a college student, and featured fouor students from New England schools, each with their own special perspective and experience.
‘Josh’ is a Brown undergrad who is out to her closer friends but not to the college community in general, and not to her family. She is shy and quietly intelligent, and explains that she cannot be out in her current circumstances, but has no doubt about her status, which is why I do not qualify her gender. In this and other such situations, I am taking persons at their word. Since this panel, I have kept in touch with Josh, and we have discussed and compared our stories in some detail by now.
‘Chris’ is a Brown grad student, out and farther along than most TS’s her age, and more seasoned in the college environment. She and other grads regularly meet at a local club and discuss issues relevant to sex, gender, and sexuality. Among TS’s she is unusual in that she is clinically ‘certified’ and on therapy at an age significantly younger than the average American TS. And this is especially unusual for a college student. Somehow, though, it all seems to work for her.
Two other panelists both identified themselves as women (hence the terms I will use), but acknowledged different degrees of male feelings. The first said that she never really felt like a woman, and is not at all comfortable in women’s roles or situations, clothing or bathrooms. Something of a quiet rebel, she says she continues get in trouble for being in mensrooms, but that it won’t stop her from doing what she feels is right for her.
The other woman had a very interesting and, for our time, rather revolutionary attitude about her gender. She said that she felt very male, but would not want to go the length to become a male, even to the limited extent of talking hormones. Nevertheless, she frequently identifies as male, and is often perceived and accepted as male, even by those who know her. She is part of the tiny but growing vangard of a new generation of gender activists with radically deconstructionist ideas about gender and sexuality, but that is for another article.
Twenty’s own vet Pam (of RIPTA fame) was called from the audience to give an impromptu presentation of her own story. Afterwards, I joined Pam and a delightful woman from Canada over an early dinner as we traded stories and perspectives.
Later in the symposium, I attended a talk given by gender activist Riki Anne Wilchins, who read from her new book, Read My Lips. During her presentation, the well-educated, mostly undergrad Brown audience discussed and debated issues of language, social paradigms, post-modern identities and the functional limitations of modernist essentialism, and other topics of which I have to admit I had only limited understanding.
Riki is a woman after my own heart, as I have gradually come to realize that I share her deconstructionist ‘po-mo’ attitudes about definitions of sex, sexuality, and gender, while still accepting that SRS and traditional gender identities are appropriate for most persons even in that enlightened society.
Kate Bornstein echoes this sentiment in her landmark book, Gender Outlaw, in explaining that she does not in any way regret SRS, and in fact is extremely grateful for it, but that she resents the social forces that made her feel that she had to make that choice, that she had to be one thing or another. The fact that she, or Riki, or I would have this attitude should not be construed as doubt or ambivalence in our own choices.
After the talk formally ended, we all stood up to leave but stuck around talking with Riki another half hour. Eventually we made our way out but Riki stayed with us another few hours, including an inpromptu session of her workshop, “Our Cunts are Not the Same” (which yours truly shyly and with some regret opted out on) in her hotel room, dinner at a local Brown eatery, and an informal chat circle at the Bear’s Lair, where I won a couple pool games between discussions on modern attitudes about sex and gender, the long-term post-op effects of hormones, and how she and I were the only ones there old enough to get many of the offhand references she used.
Privately, we both convided in each other, to our small shame, that we still find a lot of college girls really hot. And that forced me to admit to the gathered kids that I was older than they thought I was, and that I was nevertheless dating someone their age. Oh yes, we had a moment there.
Also at the Wilchins talk, I met a surprising number of college kids who shared a lot of her ideas before they even met her or heard what she had to say, and many of them were out to themselves as transgendered, or even transsexual. On the way out I met a very quiet ‘pre-FTM’ who called himself ‘Abe’, who was very interested in the special aspects of Rhode Island law which allow various shortcuts in changing one’s name. (Anyone specifically interested in the RI info, please contact me.)
I also was very interested in the remarks of a young TG who told me excitedly that she wanted to go ‘halfway’, to take hormones but not necessarily have any sort of surgery. Her feelings are characteristic of the chaging notions about gender that are emerging with the younger generations behind us.
I mentioned the documentary about Max Valerio in the other front page article, so I won’t detail it here, but we were also supposed to see a film called You Don’t Know Dick, a series of minidocs of four FTMs. Unfortunately, the film was not available to the organizers at the time of the symposium. Copies are very limited, and it apparently was reserved for the gender syposium held the weekend of the 28th at Cornell. Anyone who made it out to that event is asked to submit a report on it.
What was refreshing about this event was not merely that a college symposium ostensibly centered on gay issues spent so much time focusing on gender identity issues, but also that a lot of that TS/TG time was spent on FTMs, the most ignored and marginalized segment of the LBGT community. Brown, indeed, has set the benchmark for future events of this nature.

GenderPAC: Transgender Activism in D.C. In our discussion with Riki Anne Wilchins (see Brown article), the self-described ‘po-mo’ activist discussed her small but growing political group, GenderPAC, which is chiefly a coalition of about a dozen national political organizations dealing with a wide range of issues, from the headline-grabbing National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to the almost unknown T.O.P.S. (Transgender Officers Protect and Serve), and serves largely to bridge the gap between traditional minority groups and their individual agendas, as well as to challenge those divisions.
GenderPAC, though primarily geared to address gender issues in political and social settings, is envisioned by its founder, Riki Wilchins, as an ‘everything’ or ‘everything else’ group, specifically addressing the ‘crossover’ zones between more clearly identified groups representing gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc. Riki cited as the classic example a person who is oppressed on several fronts, and is thus not recognized by major activist groups because they ‘cloud the boundaries’ of what Wilchins calls ‘identity politics’, for which she blames a great deal of the current in-fighting and reticence among activists.
Riki wants to specifically confront the plight of crossover minorities such as poor black lesbians and those who do not fit into traditionally identified groups, such as hermaphrodites and electively intersexed transgenders, ‘interracial’ persons (we both agreed this was a ludicrous way of looking at people and race), and those who otherwise do not have full access to the existing political mechanisms designed to protect others. A related personal movement of hers is to challenge the very paradigms on which those identities are based in the first place, which would essentially have the effect of redefining people everywhere.
For more information about GenderPAC and its goals and activities, contact Membership@GPac.org, 212-645-2686, or write to GenderPAC, Attn: Dana Priesing, 733 15th Street NW, 7th Fl., Washington DC 20005. — Tell ‘em wess sent ya.

Hothead Talks Trash About Gender at Arts Festival Diane DiMassa, celebrated creator of the underground comic Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, presented a slide show of her work at the week-long Queer Arts Festival at the Rhode Island School of Design.
DiMassa first felt compelled to explain that the character of Hothead, a violent and emotionally unbalanced caffeine-addict, is a graphic representation of her own ‘id monster’ that she had to face and deal with in her prolonged recovery from years of abuse, mostly from herself. She presents the comic as a means for others to recognize their own demons and start the healing process that she almost never survived to begin herself.
That said, she told the history of the character, from her roots in art therapy to her more recent adventures, in which she confronts issues of bisexuality and, most recent of all, gender and transgenderism.
DiMassa had touched on gender issues in the comic before, but these have recently been brought to the forefront, in the deliberate ambiguity surrounding Hothead’s new and steady girlfriend, Daphne, and especially in the most recent issue, in which the consummation of their relationship is presented in a manner which, which not revealing the ‘truth’ about Daphne, also makes a very strong statement about that, while further showing that Hothead, whatever kind of psycho she may be, is not concerned about her girlfriend’s specific identity or other special characteristics.
DiMassa herself explained that this came about as a direct reaction of anger on her own part following numeroud earnest letters from readers demanding to know if Daphne was really a girl, a transvestite, transgendered, transsexual, preop, postop, and all that. Diane, disgusted with the fact that this was such an issue, and being that she is close friends with Kate Bornstein, decided to go forward with the relationship but not to reveal Daphne’s ‘secret’, to drive home her own point that gender is not the be-all, end-all issue that some of her readers felt it is.
Diane is not just some cartoonist to me; we come from the same city, New Haven, Conn., and though she couldn’t possibly be expected to remember, we’ve met a number of times, before she moved to Frisco. She didn’t recognize me at RISD, either, but I’ve never been quite the same person each time we’ve met.
But I have eagerly followed Hothead from her earliest beginnings as a short-run pulp sold in local newstands, and after the show emailed her to express my appreciation. In brief notes, we discussed Daphne and how her fans are so worked up over her gender. Her secret, says Diane, of the mysterious girlfriend with nose-length bangs: ‘she has no eyes.’ wess