April 7, 2008
April 6, 2008
April 4, 2008
The Quantum Mechanics of a Pregnant Transman
Thomas Beattie is hot right now. Pregnant transmen boggle our imaginations. Pregnant? you say. And he says he is a man??
How can this be?!?
Mr. Beattie’s claims that the FtM community hasn’t been very supportive of him. While I’ve only read positive support for his decision (on Facebook in particular), I’ve seen this negative behavior before. Way back in the ’90s (which belies current statements that Thomas Beattie is the world’s first pregnant man) Matt Rice got stalked on-line by another FtM, enraged that Mr. Rice would choice to bear a child after declaring himself a man. Vague and not so vague threats were made.
That degree of hatred suggests to me that we’ve not really evolved beyond our own instilled binary notions of gender. That after all this time, after Kate Bornstein and Riki Ann Wilchens and Judith Butler and genderqueer, and fuck the binary, all of us - and most certainly transsexuals - believe that our biology is really real.
We believe that our biology - manifest in our bodies - really determines our gender.
But I want to delve into biology as it is manifest in our social and cultural practices. That is to say, I want to discuss how biology, and all of science, is socially constructed. The progressive left’s efforts at gender radicalism point out - rightfully so, I believe - that gender is largely a set of socially agreed upon scripts. Where transfolks and genderqueer people run into trouble is when we change those scripts.
But in this rubric, while we have popularized the phrase gender as performance almost ad naseum, we have not similarly popularized the phrase science as performance.
So I ask, why? Why, despite the efforts of feminist scholars Donna Haraway, sociologist Bruno Latour and others, do we on the progressive left still believe that science is a set of facts that exist outside the instruments we have used to discover this facts, that these facts exist throughout time (i.e. metahistorical), and that these facts do exist outside our thinking about them.
In essence, we’re still dating Newton (universalism) while Heisenberg (relativism) is our man.
Even as I write this last sentence, I’m thinking, “Oh God. Science! Math! Physics! Calculus! They are never going to read on.” We ignore science because we’re often not very good at it - if grades are the determining factor - but we do so at our own peril.
I wish not to be alarmist but rather to suggest that when we ignore science as part of the stories we tell about our gender, we fail ourselves. Failing to grasp all the plot points, and the complexities those plot points suss out, that adding this character Science to our story brings out, we resign ourselves to the very binary we seek to dismantle.
Over the next several posts I will talk about the history of science, the construction of scientific facts, the inaccuracy of terms like natural and biology, quantum mechanics, and how of this relates to Mr. Thomas Beattie.
Stay tuned and thanks for reading.
April 2, 2008
A Move to Simpler Things
As you may have already guessed, I’ve revamped and streamlined my blog. I realized that I avoided blogging because the previous template was just too much. Over the last many weeks I’ve come to several realizations.
1. Sometimes simple is best. Complexity brings with it more choice. More choice can be taxing.
2. Each commitment brings with it additional responsibilities. No is the fastest way to maintain simplicity.
3. Fear is not a useful, long-term motivator. Scaring myself doesn’t really get me where I need to be, and I end up exhausting myself, too.
4. I like traveling by Amtrak. Everything is much slower on Amtrak than either flying or driving.
5. We’re here on earth to be kind to one another and help each other get where need to be.
6. Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” works in the city as well as the rural midwest.
7. I want to work my story, not find a story that fits my work.
8. I’m developing a passion for surrealist literature.
9. In the end, I will die and become one of the billions of nameless, faceless people who have gone before me. Despite the greater proliferation of information, I believe I will become, in death, more obscure than many who have come before me.
March 13, 2008
File This Under “Who Knew?”
April 1 is the official birthday of Homofactus Press. We’ll be three in about two and a half weeks. Had you told me five years ago I would grow up to become a publisher, I would have scoffed. But I’ve come to believe that our ragtag company of two - both working full time jobs elsewhere - are the poster kids for the whole industry around Start Where You’re At and See What Happens.
Who knew? Tonight our third (!) author (and Self-Organizing Men contributor) Scott Turner Schofield will debut his acclaimed solo plays. I’m tickled…..
Please join us in welcoming Atlanta-based performance artist Scott Turner Schofield to celebrate the release of his new book, Two Truths & a Lie at Atlanta’s Charis Books & More. Two Truths and a Lie is a memoir in the form of three solo plays written and performed by Scott Turner Schofield. From inside the often hilarious—but all too real—moments of his young life on the Homecoming Court and Debutante Ball circuit (in a dress), through a closet of suits to find one that fits, Schofield comes out with truly unbelievable stories of a body in search of an identity. By turns slapstick and slap-to-the-face, this drama invites audiences and readers to explore gender, sex, sexuality, and self in their own first person. Come see Turner perform excerpts of his memoir, then stick around for the Q & A and book-signing.
We believe we are lucky publishers! Scott chose us to publish his groundbreaking, funny, and poignant performance pieces. If you haven’t yet seen Scott in “Underground Transit,” “Debutante Balls,” or “127 EASY Steps,” read his words to get a feel for his inborn comedic timing. After reading his plays you will put seeing him perform as an “A” on your personal to-do list.
You can buy your own copy here.
You’ll be glad you did, as are we for publishing these timely, important, and unique ways to tell one person’s trans/gender queer/raced/classed/regionalized history.
Congratulations and Big Love!
Jay and Ms. H. (x-posted at www.homofactuspress.com)
March 12, 2008
I Need Your Help
Hey All!
I will be visiting Chicago March 27 and March 28 and would love to meet other FtMs/trans masculine folks, as well as friends, partners, and anyone else while I’m there. The big feminist bookstore in Chicago is not an option for doing a reading gig so I’d love the opportunity to read from Self-Organizing Men as well as talk about our current and upcoming books.
If you want to meet and/or know of places (people’s homes/coffee shops/etc.) where I can do a reading I surely do appreciate it. Leave your contact info in the comments.
Big love to all, Jay
P.S. I did contact Nick Winter at GenderWorks…..
February 1, 2008
On Gratitude: 5 Lessons From Learning That Less is More
These days I’m working on wanting what I have and gratitude for what I do have. This effort has resulted in five new, yet interrelated epiphanies, about money, clutter, and time. These are the three big issues for those of us solidly in the middle-class, which is to say, our materials are need on a regular basis such that we might not be living paycheck to paycheck, have healthcare, and very importantly, have money to pay someone else to fix our broken things.
Ephiphany No 1. By truly wanting less - not the notion of “I should want less because Zen is In!” - I have more money now. That I am 43 and have only now figured this out indicates the depths of my suffering mind. But as we like to say here in the u.s., better late than never. Somehow, this working on gratitude, I’ve managed to hold on to the pennies, nickles and dimes I used to fritter away on so much crap.
Epiphany No. 2. With less crap, the less I have to pay to keep the crap I do have clean. Here is a bonus epiphany. Not only to get more money (see Epiphany No. 1) but I also get more time. There is less to clean, less to organize, less to worry about.
Epiphany No. 3. The more I am grateful for what I have, the more relaxed I am. Less striving after the crap of life. Ms. H. candidly pointed out to me awhile back that it is “the act of buying something that is sexy. We’ve bought art that we still haven’t hung but we were very excited when we bought it.” Very true. The getting of a thing is often much more fun than the having of it. (This can also be true of dating!)
Epiphany No. 4. Gratitude somehow generates more time. I’m not really sure how it works. It’s kind of like four-year-old magic or something. A more adult like explanation can be found, I think, in the realm of paradox. But I do have much more time now to tend to the details like cleaning, organizing, answering non-urgent, non-important emails. The whole experience seems very Hogwarts to me.
Epiphany No. 5. And along these magical lines, these acts of gratitude for my stuff have helped me like people more. Now, I am a curmudgeon from the get-go. If Ms. H. precedes me in death, I will surely be the old man with 63 cats whose house gets egged by kids on the block. I recall reading a Zen teacher from Japan based in the U.S. tell his students that caring for our things teaches us about the fundamental goodness of, and in, life. I didn’t really believe him. But now I sort of understand what he means. But don’t just believe him or me without trying it yourself. See what happens.
What are you all grateful for?
January 8, 2008
3 Methods to Contain Your Email
How many of us are overwhelmed by email?
I was. To reduce this feeling and and practice slowing down and reducing my stress, my goal is to contain my email. Since last week I’ve checked personal email only twice a day and not at all on this past Saturday and Sunday. Considering I am a recovering crackberry addict, I’m pleased with my results. Now the hard part. What do I do with all my emails? Each time I’m at my inbox, I achieve inbox zero. That means there’s nothing in the inbox when I click “log off.” Here’s how: 1. A process for dealing with emails ~ Do something with every email. You have four choices.
- Respond.
- Delete.
- Delegate.
- Delay.
Start at the top of your inbox and handle each email. If I can respond to the email in under two minutes, I do it right then. If not, I move it to a “delay” process that is essentially a daily tickler file. I realize this system will not work for all of you. It is purely my own, and I do not recommend it. Create whatever system works for you. Maybe David Allen’s system works or your Grandma’s does. Create it. Use it. Stick to it. If I can’t respond to the email in two minutes, I delay it until I have time to answer it. Sometimes that means I must make answering that email one of my two Most Important Tasks (MITs) of the day. Like yesterday I spent about 20 minutes responding to our lawyer’s questions about our new contract. 2. The five sentence response ~ How many emails do you receive that you feel will require thought, deliberation and at least an hour to respond to? I’ve been there. Email is one form of communication. You are not obligated to respond with a short story to anyone’s email. Frankly, if you do believe that is required, your response merits a phone call. How old school! You say. How 70s! Believe me, people are relieved to actually talk to another human being. Instead, practice the five sentence email response. That’s it. Respond to every email in five sentences or less. Don’t waste your time or anybody else’s either. If I can’t say what I need to say in five sentences, I need to be making that phone call. 3. Don’t incur what you don’t have to ~ I’ve stopped all those email reminders. From Google, Facebook, online banks, all of them. Turned them off. I’ve also started unsubscribing from newsletters. Makes deleting emails short and sweet. In this game of life, it’s all about attention. Without attention, we have little time. I can say that containing my email has been one of the most productive and edifying choices I’ve ever made in my life. It may prove to be so for you, too. Good luck. May the force be with you.
January 4, 2008
Men Fearing Other Men
I believe that men can and do benefit from the subjection of women. What interests me is how it is that men remain silent in the face of their daughters or sisters abuse. Setting aside the sure percentage of men who think women deserve it, I wonder if the group of men who may want to intervene don’t intervene because they are afraid they will get beat up, too.
The times when I have confronted bullies, I’ve been terrified. Maybe he’ll come after me, too, I think. Male violence works to keep us all in place, perpetrators and victims alike. But letting another man beat up a woman won’t keep us safe. It just delays the more than likely chance that we may be victimized by another man.
But this reality should not keep us from working to end male violence. Why does work around ending domestic violence address helping the victim, with no collective, ongoing, state and federally funded response for abusers? Many men agree that rape and domestic violence are wrong. Sitting around, though, and doing nothing or attributing this behavior to some misguided notions of evolutionary biology sends the strong message to women and these abusive men that we are totally down with what you are doing….And I’m glad it’s not me you’re beating up.
Ending violence against women is an excellent place to begin the work of dismantling violence. But we should also be working to end bullying schools, homophobia and corporal punishment as a way of dealing with bad boys. Our own well-being depends on it.
January 3, 2008
My First Bespoke Jacket
Thursdays are Bespoke, where I share my interests in hand-made clothing, traditional menswear, the history of masculine dress, men’s fashion and what clothing and style means for me as a white transsexual man.
For some time now I have been in the market for a bespoke jacket. I wanted a jacket since suit-wearing is not something I do very often here in Ann Arbor.
The jacket need to reflect my sense of myself as a part-of-yet-apart-from white male dress. White male dress is defined by me as wrinkled khakis or jeans, sneakers, and some kind of button-down wrinkled shirt. Knowing what I want and going for it are two entirely different actions. I had made appointments with a few tailors, only to cancel them. Fear shot through me. The cost did not throw me so much as entering into a space that has been defined as entirely male for more than three hundred years.
But I kept at it, until one day I was perusing the boards at The London Lounge and saw a picture of a different jacket tailored by Mr. Richard Anderson of Richard Anderson, Ltd. I clicked on casual coats and saw the above picture and knew in an instant fell fast and hard.
I emailed Richard Anderson and received an almost instantaneous reply from Mr. Brian Lishak, Richard Anderson’s business partner. We discussed particulars, and I then set up an appointment for September 2006. I drove to Chicago, met with Richard, who spent two hours with me discussing the ins and outs of Savile Row, bespoke clothing, and what sets Richard Anderson apart.
The one button stance (the stance describes how buttons a coat/jacket stands with) is one of its unique features. “Nothing extraneous,” said Brian. I agree. But as I had gone mad cotton/cashmere/courdoroy material that creates the jacket, I had to go with four buttons!
After much deliberation I chose light blue with a hot pink lining. “Lovely,” declared Mr. Lishak. His obvious appreciation is one of the many reasons I love Savile Row. A man can actually wear a hot pink lining in his jacket and receive appreciation in response.
I’ll returned for my first paper fitting in late January 2007 and another fitting in June. I was unable to attend a final fitting in October. I’ve emailed Mr. Lishak in the hopes that they can drop ship the jacket to me before his next visit to Chicago. I shall keep you posted.
January 2, 2008
3 Tools for Slowing Down
So I lied. Kind of. While I stated that loving myself is my top resolution for 2008, I confess to having one more: to slow down.
I’ve become all-too aware of how much I have let busyness rule my life. This realization provided me with motivation to do less in 2008. One way to begin the process of doing less is to slow down.
I’ve found three tools that I will be (and already have started) using in order to slow down, really, really slow.
1. Contain the Email ~ I’m only checking personal email once a day. I can’t conceive of anything arriving in my inbox that requires me an immediate answer. I resolutely did not check my personal email before lunch. As I listened to the iPod and walked around campus taking in the beautiful, winter snowscape, a little voice kept urging me to check my email when I get back! Check my email when I get back. Why? To distract myself. One of the reasons I’m slowing down is to see how distracted I really am.
2. Stop Multitasking ~ Do you read blogs while you eat lunch? Answer email while you’re on the phone? Chow down on popcorn, M&Ms and other junk food while watching television? I do. And I’m vowing not to this year. Today I ate my lunch, slowly, one bit at a time. It took me about 25 minutes to do it. Usually I wolf down my food in under 10 minutes. By slowing down, I think I’m going to learn that I eat more than I really need to and most of what I read I don’t remember. I’m not really reading it in the first place, just filling up the time waiting for that All Important Big Thing to happen. Meanwhile, life zooms on by.
3. Focus on Breathing ~ As I walked, I focused on feeling both my inhalation and expiration. Sounds easy. But try sitting in a favorite chair and focus only on this: breathe in, breathe out. If, like me, you are a thinking and feeling human being, in less than one expiration, the monkey mind sets in, screaming “go,” “move,” “do something now!!!” Just keep breathing.
One of the most important reasons for me to slow down is that I want to address a persistent feeling of unhappiness I’ve had throughout 2007. I can most accurately characterize it as a lack of gratitude. A lack of gratitude arises because I’m not paying attention. I’m not paying attention because I’m moving too quickly, multi-tasking, etc. Thus, slowing down may be a ticket to more joy.
What other tools do you use to slow down?
January 1, 2008
Top 2 Reasons Why Self-Acceptance is My Resolution for 2008
I vow to accept my most hated and imperfect body to fullest extend possible, knowing that radical self-acceptance ~ not in any kind of cheesy self-improvement model promoted by the diet industries ~ is the foundation of all transformative revolutions.
In achieving a bespoke body, my mind is still the number place where acceptance of my imperfect body begins.
There are two reasons to work towards self-acceptance.
1. Others Become More Fabulous ~ Greater self-acceptance leads to greater acceptance of others. Try it. See for yourself. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to self-loathing and the federal-express-straight-to-hell lifestyle offered by it.
2. You Become More Fabulous ~ The hippest, happiest people really like and accept themselves. They understand that they won’t always be happy, that happiness is transitory. But they understand that self-acceptance can be inviolate and absolute; that their bodies are what they are: unique and wonderful. And that is very sexy. I would venture to say that the greater the self-acceptance, the sexier you will appear, which will lead to more sex, money, whatever you want. Again, try it. I am.
If it, like no. 1, does not work, I’m going back to feeling contemptible and acting shamefully. Otherwise, I’m working for a greater good in myself and towards others.
Namaste and Happy New Year to Everyone
December 31, 2007
5 Powerful Reasons to Do Less in 2008
I’ve spent 2007 attempting to responsibly act regarding my money and my stuff. The first 11 months of the year I tried various organizational tools to help me Get Things Done ala David Allen. Vitalist and Remember the Milk were helpful.
But I had fallen prey to an-all-too common GTD behavior: I was spending more time updating my lists than actually doing the things on my list.
So I pared back by moving everything to a lo-fi list using a moleskin and Behance’s stunning, wonderful swag. I highly recommend their tools if you are a pencil and paper kind of trannie, queer or genderqueer. The fact that I don’t have to fire up the laptop every time I want to check my grocery list is worth the cost alone. Plus, Behance really convinced me that using beautiful tools enahce’s my creative output. Don’t know if that is true for you, but it certainly is for me.
Behance’s tools make me happy to write down my to-do items, happy to review them and happy to check them off. And what’s more, I actually save the lists as a reminder of things I’ve done. A quick review of the lists whenever I’m not motivated can help me get motivated.
But even with these inspired and inspiring tools, what has really helped me get organized is doing less. The art of doing less has been an kind of awareness-shift for me, and I’m going to work very hard on doing less in 2008.
Here’s why:
1. Spiritual Growth ~ Don’t know about you, but I’m the perfect workaholic tranny activist. This past weekend I vowed that I would neither turn on my laptop nor work on work. Instead, I finished up a funky-looking frame for postcards from our Ireland trip. Now, this frame has been on my to-do list since about September of 2006. With always working, though, it kept getting pushed back to someday. But by not working on working, I was free to finish this project. As an experiment, I just watched my mind and feelings as I puttered around the basement finishing up the frame. What I observed knocked me off center.
I work because I hate unstructured time. In fact, I fear unstructured time. By doing less I’ve gotten in touch with a core fear. Namely, that I am nothing and will amount nothing in my life. Knowing this fear is within me, I can work to more fully integrateit into my psyche and be okay here and now.
2. Personal Care ~ You know, the dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning just really aren’t that important because, you know, I’m working on the Revolution! The dishes piled up and so did the laundry and I possessed a nagging sense that these tasks were somehow the work of Ms. H. since she wanted a clean house. Such a lie! Such bull pucky! I’ve always wanted a clean house but somehow I had positioned cleaning as diametrically opposed to work. So I’ve spent this past week between jesus’ birthday and new year’s eve cleaning as I go, wiping down the kitchen counters every night before I go to bed and doing the laundry regularly. By doing less, I can take better care of the messes I make. This helps me feel less flustered, angry, more integrated.
3. Political Revolution ~ I can hear all of you saying what does political change have to do with doing less. A lot. By more meaningfully integrating personal care as part of my responsible work in this lifetime, I’m creating less messes. I’m also taking one hundred percent responsibility for cleaning them up. This helps reduce a behavior I call “shitting in bed, kicking it on the floor and expecting somebody else to clean it up.” In our North American society, how many of us unconsciously act like it is somebody else’s job to fix the crap in our life?
By doing less, I create less crap, can clean up the crap I create and more fully and responsibly enter into my next crap-making endeavor.
4. Time for Lovers, Family, Friends ~ This one seems like a no brainer. But for a workaholic like me, doing less means doing the difficult work of maintaining my connections with Ms. H., my family and dear friends. In the end, they are the ones thatcare for me as I age, spend time with me when I am sick or troubled, support me through the ups and downs. An empty email inbox can’t do that.
Now, I’m totally down with an empty inbox, but if I’m frittering away time checking email fifty or more times a day instead of calling my family every once in awhile, I’ve lost sight of the profound fact that Ms. H. and my family love me. By doing less I’m willing to face all the difficulties and ickiness that is sometimes part of relationships. Most importantly, though, by doing less I have to face the fact that they do love me, which for me, is one of the top three most difficult facts for me to accept in life. It’s probably no. 1, actually.
5. Time for Hobbies ~ Do activists have hobbies? I surely don’t. Everything gets subsumed under the Cause and the Revolution. Hobbies are Frivolous. So by doing less, I’m actually learning to engage in activities for the simple pleasure they bring me. Shocking. And I’m learning to deal with how very awkward I feel about engaging in activities that are not good for the Cause, my Health or the Work, they are just good for me, because they make me happy.
Bonus: Bigger Bang for Your Buck ~ One of the main problems with staying busy, busy, busy, is that I’ve frittered away time on low-hanging fruit. Not focusing on the big ticket items like this blog, Homofactus Press, working on my novels and short stories, my various speaking-gig presentations and my cartoons, just about guarantees a kind of successful mediocrity. By doing less, I am working more productively on those tasks that are most important. I am also learning to view email and such as the work to be completed around the big tasks, not instead of.
Happy New Year!
December 28, 2007
The Medical Plantation
(Projection/Narration, intersected by images of Montgomery, Alabama, and other Sims statues in NYC, South Carolina, other Alabama towns, and images of slave life in the 1840s and 50s)1846: Montgomery doctor J. Marion Sims pays to build a hospital with 16 beds in his backyard. He was setting out to find an operative cure for women’s fistula, openings between the bladder and the vaginal or rectal region, often caused by prolonged childbirth - a relatively common condition that made women incontinent.Sims asked plantation owners to provide him with subjects, slave women. In the following 3 years, Sims worked on up to 11 patients at a time.
We only know 3 names: ANARCHA, BETSEY and LUCY. Sims tells in his biography that he operated on ANARCHA more than 30 times. He did not use anesthesia for the operations on their vaginas, but he used opium to aid with recovery. His development of the speculum made him the first modern doctor to actually look at and into women’s vaginas.
We know nothing about the women, about whether they were cured, where they went, when they died. Later, Sims used the methods and instruments he developed to become the celebrated and well-traveled ‘father of gynecology’.
(excerpted from The Anarcha Project)
When the anesthesia forced my body to unconsciousness for my hysterectomy, I did not know about Sims and the medical plantation; had not been taught about the tremendous suffering endured by Anarcha. I think Sim’s behavior and Anarcha’s pain is another connection white people have to african-americans that we struggle to even acknowledge. That our lives are better because of the history of real pain and suffering of African-Americans.
Sims brutalized Anarcha, his pre-modern speculum a weapon. Each endeavor on his part to find a surgical answer to fistulas a rape. Yet his pioneering work culminates in my complete hysterectomy.
Anarcha become a tool in his medical manifest destiny and mine. Her cries echo in echo in that cavity that remains in my body.
