The following Musing is a result of a correspondence with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. I have been a fan of Amy and Emily Sailers for a long time, I admire them for their music, honesty, and courage. They have been most informative and compassionate in helping educate people about Transgender issues and I wrote Amy and thanked her. She suggested that I read her interviews in regards to the Michigan Womyn's Fest, a women-only music festival that excludes transgendered people.
Oh Amy,
I hope you don't mind that I wrote this diatribe, I know this is way long for an E-mail:
I read your interviews in regards to the Michigan Womyn's Festival.
I must again thank you for your enlightened awareness of transgender issues.
I started writing a brief E-mail about my thoughts on the matter but this torrent of words would not stop flowing. I hope I haven't worn out my welcome.
I must admit to a certain naiveté' when it comes to the exclusion/inclusion issues of the festival. I try and stay on top of the legal and political battles being fought in the GLBT movement but I have lived a very cloistered existence since my transition. As before, the vast majority of my time is taken up by my musical endeavors. I have very little social contact. It seems that most of the time when I mix with the population I'm playing my bass.
I must also admit to my incompetence at dealing with the music business. I've always survived because I was the hot shot "hired gun". There have always been stars to attach myself to. I have a knack for playing many styles, but I've been pegged as a certain type of player. I enjoy playing all kinds of music, even classical, but my Jazz prowess has always been my fiscal bread and butter.
Although many famous older players and vocalists have utilized my talents, I've always been terrible at dealing with promoters and record company people when trying to promote my music.
But experience is an amazing teacher, and I'm starting to come out of my shell.
I have encountered a lot of prejudice and resistance to my transsexual existence, both from my parents and the male-dominated world of Jazz music.
My first instinct has always been to be non-confronting, to let my ability speak for itself. The problem is that there are fewer and fewer opportunities to display my ability.
It saddens me to read of the exclusion of transgendered people at an all-woman festival. I've learned from my life that the brain is the thing that determines one's gender, not the birth genitalia. The studies done on the subject all are pointing to that fact.
I have suffered so much to be where I am today, believe me, I've paid my dues. Up to now it would be my nature to shy away from a confrontation, I would hope that my competence would somehow win people's hearts.
Reading some of your interviewees' opinions has made me feel that I should stop feeling that way. I noticed the problems at the festival when some African American butches were excluded because of their perceived masculine tendencies. When education was given to the powers-that-be the situation was remedied. These powers-that-be need educating about the realities and the myths surrounding Transgender issues as well.
There is so much pigeonholing of gay and transgender people into conforming gender archetypes, it's just as confining as the Christian Right binary gender system. You're either femme or butch, a bear, a chicken, a top, or bottom, a drag queen, a cross dresser, a pre-op, a tranny, etc. It is an archaic way of thinking.
There is no choice for a person who is born transsexual. You either learn to embrace it or die. There was not a waking moment in my life when I didn't know that I was female, regardless of genitalia. Yes I grew up on the male side of the aisle, but that doesn't mean I was ever comfortable with it. I loved playing baseball but so do a lot of women.
It's no fun growing up with a dark secret, I'm sure you know how that feels as much as I do. Playing a role is no way to grow up. I always looked more female than male, especially when I was little, and experienced violence because of it.
If we could evolve our way of child rearing to where kids didn't feel pressure to become wholly male or female we could avoid so much tragedy.
We need gender wiggle room.
I've been consulting with a few young patients of some psychiatrists here in L.A. Even in the professional counseling world there are so many who need education about the causes and the choices available for the gender variant. They send them to me out of compassion, I become the go-between to help them find the right caregivers.
Because of these consultations I've been asked to give speeches at conferences of psychiatric counselors, medical practitioners, law enforcers, and lawgivers. I guess it's my first foray into activism.
One of my speeches was at the Trans-Unity Conference last spring at the Los Angeles GLBT Center. My general subject was one that applies to the dilemma at the Michigan Womyn Festival.
The transgender community, like the rest of the GLBT community, is divided into archetypes. But it's a very diverse world. We all tend to get lumped together for exclusion purposes.
Are there varying degrees of womaness in the transgender community?
Are you going to paint a transsexual woman who has undergone years of psychiatric evaluation, years of hormone therapy, a life threatening major surgery and has experienced life from the woman's side of the aisle with the same brush as a male fetishistic transvestite who dresses in an exaggerated feminine style occasionally and masturbates?
Unfortunately there is often no distinction made of all the different people who get lumped under the transgender umbrella. This is not to say that there's anything wrong with the latter archetype, it's just that in so many circles, diversity is not permitted.
When I was asked to make an appearance on KPFK radio here in L.A. the chairperson of the Trans-Unity conference insisted on accompanying me on the air. He was dressed as a man, had long sideburns and spoke like Robert Goulet. He asked the host to refer to him as Claudia(a pseudonym). We were trying to make a sympathetic case for the conference to the mostly straight listening audience. In my mind having Claudia speak was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Unfortunately some of the most vocal advocates of the Transgender movement are some of the least successful people at being accepted as women. The most successful transsexual people I know prefer to be stealth, to live as real women and be perceived as such.
I have an interesting dilemma in my life. I am capable of being stealth but only if I walk away from my musical career. As you know, I am a musician with a proud resume' and music is the thing that's kept me alive all of my adult life. I have a distinctive playing style and also am quite unusual in that I play the string bass left-handed. It's impossible to hide where I've been. I don't want to hide anymore.
My solution is to be wide open about myself. Heck, my surgery has been shown on television all over the world! When people ask questions I answer them. I've educated a lot of people who would never have been exposed to the subject. I don't live in paranoia about whether or not I'm "passing", even though in non-music situations I certainly am.
I digress. Getting back to the issue of the festival. Transgendered people go through a very awkward time when they begin their official female life. They need compassion from others as they learn to relax and accept their new status.
Many people who are in transition from male to female have not taken the time to research just what it means to be a woman in today's society. They, as I was, are trying to find relief from their condition. It is a very self centered drive, as it has to be in order to get through it. The feeling for me was a very physical discomfort, keeping up a male appearance and persona was very stressful.
If a MtF is as lucky as I have been, to be able to "pass" in everyday life you definitely begin to realize what it means to be a perceived as a woman in today's society. It's so different. Much of it is absolutely wonderful, but you begin to notice the second class citizen status given to most women. Your ideas are not listened to, and you find yourself staying in conversations by asking questions instead of answering them. Many little links in a chain that keep you in the shadows.
Some transgendered people never learn to assimilate as women, they expect to be treated as such but really haven't made the effort to present themselves in a manner that garners acceptance. So fault lies with both sides on this issue. The solution is to find the middle ground where the vast majority of each camp can agree.
I understand that the lumping of all transgendered people into one group makes most uneducated people think of us all as one thing - the worst stereotype. No wonder we get excluded!
My life has been a journey to finally become the woman I've always known myself to be. I always felt that women were a superior life form, more evolved, intelligent, open-minded, and tolerant. Judging from the treatment given to the transgendered by the Michigan Womyn's Fest, maybe I was wrong.
I am excluded from so many groups these days. For a long time I've taken the same tact I use for my parents, it's their loss. But I'm getting tired of staying home and practicing and writing music all the time. I take that back, I really enjoy practicing and writing. But it would be nice to have more opportunities to perform my music!
Sorry if I bent your ear Amy, you've probably heard all of these points before. You are one of the bright lights who are working to make things better and I certainly wouldn't want you to think that I'm ranting at you! I found your interviews to be most enlightening.
Hope I don't appear too self-indulgent. You are inspiring my budding activism. Keep up the good fight!
With much admiration,
Jennifer Leitham, Feb 9, 2006 Michigan Womyn's Fest Epilogue March 12, 2007 It’s been a while since I wrote this Musing. I always put a date on the Musings because they reflect my thinking at the time they were written. This particular Musing was written while in an agitated state. That is not neccessarily a bad thing, sometimes inspiration is born of such conditions. Jennifer Leitham, March 12, 2007
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