Happenings in Iowa - Part Deux

First, I want to apologize to anyone who may come by on a regular basis looking for something new; I didn't realize that it has been so long since I posted anything. Life has become rather full, and finding time to write stuff for fun has become difficult at times.

Second, for those of you who are concerned as to what's been going on with me and the floods of 2008 in Iowa: I'm fine, as is my family. My parents are dealing with a fair amount of water in their basement from groundwater saturation, but just about everyone is dealing with that. The floods have been a tragic reminder to many that we are not in control of our environment, regardless of what we sometimes like to think.

Now, I know that busy-ness is not an excuse, but I think my explanation will be acceptable to folks. The end of February we brought home our second daughter. She's beautiful. But, as with most infants she demands a great deal of time. So we now have 2 children 2 or under. In addition to that, at the same time (why do things always pile up like that?) I started a second job: I'm pastoring a small congregation in my male identity. So between night-time feedings, and working an additional 10-15 hours a week, my time has become increasingly full.

I've been planning on posting on something for a while, but it always seems as if something else is calling for and claiming my time. Now that summer is here, perhaps I will find a way of posting a few things. I have a ton of things on my mind, that need to be expressed in one way or another.

Check back, you never know when I will post again, or what it will be about.

Happenings in Iowa

Well, Iowa is at it again, or should I say Iowans are.

Way back in August (August 30th to be exact), a county judge ruled that Iowa's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, opening the way for same-sex marriage. Less than a day later, there was a moratorium issued on his decision, and the case was sent on to the state Supreme Court. Who honestly thought that the close-minded, fear-mongering folks of Iowa would let the legal system work the way it was intended?

Yesterday, the opponents of gay marriage protested at the capital in Des Moines. It's amazing how much something as simple as letting two people love each other can cause so much hate and vitriol to come to the surface (even if it wasn't that far below the surface before.) The thing that is so amazing to me is that the most heat and hate is coming from individuals and organizations that publicly tout their Christian virtue. I have yet to hear opponents to gay marriage come up with a reason for their position that is not based in religious belief, or comes from an easily debunked pseudo-social-psychological organization. These folk were protesting for the right to vote on the issue, their chant was 'majority rules.' Great, majority rules! If majority ruled, women and people of color would not have the right to vote, people of color would still be sitting at the back of the bus, and my 'house help' would have way more of a tan than me.

Those who are seeking gay marriage rights are not seeking to make churches marry same-sex individuals. A church has the choice to choose to marry or not marry anyone they choose. There are churches that will not marry people who live together, or come from different faith backgrounds, or are deemed to be making a big mistake. Those people can still find a church somewhere, or go in front of a judge to be joined. The thing is that after that, they have access to all the benefits that are given to married folk by the laws of this land. That is what the proponents of gay marriage are seeking. Access to those same rights that are granted to heterosexual couples.

Did you know that there are (at latest count) 1,138 benefits that same-sex couples do not have easy access to? Yes, it is true that there are legal ways in which they can get many of these rights, but that costs hundreds of hours of legal assistance, when other people need to just say 'I do.' And that doesn't include the tax differences, medical care stuff, familial law, and so forth. I hope that people who oppose this action take the time to actually research it and find out that this truly is about equality and equal access under the law.

As someone who took part in a same-sex marriage last year, and hope to be a part of many more, I pray that Iowa will continue its grand tradition of equality, and prove that this state is truly a leader in many ways.

Past History

One of the things that I have not talked about here is my time in seminary, and why I am not a pastor. I had basically put that part of my life behind me and moved on with my life, then WHAM, up pops something new. Before I go into the new development I should say something about what happened.

I entered Wartburg Theological Seminary with the intention of studying to become a pastor in the ELCA. I was a decent student, and I loved my studies. I was popular with my fellow students and my professors. My second year, I was chosen for the opportunity to go to Germany for a year and study theology there, in the motherland. It was there that things began to fall apart. My wife at the time had a difficult time with the amount of time that I was dedicating to my studies, it was in another language after all, and theology isn’t exactly an easy subject. To make the story short, she found comfort in the arms of another. We worked through that and returned to the US. Where, after about 9 months, she did it again.

This time however, she went one step further and outed my transgender nature to the seminary. That was the beginning of the end. I was very quickly asked to withdraw, and move on with my life. I could come back if I could prove I was mature enough to deal with my ‘problem’; in other words, live completely in the closet and tell no one, ever. That’s something I cannot do. I’m not ashamed of who I am.

Well, now it’s been a few years. The ELCA is continuing its discussions about the presence of GLBT people in its churches and its pulpits. A group is trying to put together the stories of former or future pastors who were stopped in their vocational journey because of who they are. My story is included in their collection.

I left the ELCA a few years ago, and am happy where I am. However, in my heart of hearts I am Lutheran not United Church of Christ. If there were a way in which I could go back to the ELCA and complete my studies, and enter into a pastoral position openly as a transgender person, I would have to think long and hard about that chance. It’s not that I would want to serve communion or run a service as Liz, but I don’t want to have to live in constant fear that someone will find out, and I will be removed. In addition, I love speaking to the public about transgender, so I am somewhat out to the general public.

So right now my heart is torn. Not really sure why I wrote about this, but I felt like I needed to get it off my chest. Thanks for listening, and caring.

Peace

2007 - the year in 'T'-view

With the passing of another year, it’s important to take a few moments and reflect on the achievements and disappointments of the previous year. 2007 has been a year of ups and downs for the transgender community, both locally and nationally.

Probably the most important thing that happened in Iowa for the transgender community was the passing and signing by Gov. Culver in May of a law extending civil rights protections and non-discrimination provisions to LGBT (including transgender) people in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations, and educational institutions. SF 427 shows that Iowa is not as conservative as many people would like to think. On the national level, the exclusion of transgender from the Employment non-Discrimination Act was a major disappointment. We can only hope that history will not be repeated and the promise that they ‘will come back for us’ will happen.

In arts and entertainment we saw more inclusion of transgender characters on broadcast television. From All my Children, and Ugly Betty, to Dirty Sexy Money; we have seen characters that are transgender included in the cast in a respectful way, not purely for the shock factor. If you consider the number of cases on the major television crime dramas, the coverage and inclusion of transgender in 2007 has been momentous. Also on television we are introduced to a gender non-conforming child on Fox’s The Riches. Let’s hope that this bodes well for the future and transgender can finally remove its association with Jerry Springer and ‘shock TV.’ In the Film arena, Martin Rawlings-Fein’s documentary Clocked: An Oral History provided an intimate portrait of transgender communities through personal reflections. Among other contributions there was Catherine Crouch’s controversial The Gendercator, Godspeed (a film based on Lynn Breedlove’s novel), and The Believers a documentary about the all transgender member Transcendence Gospel Choir.

In the literary world we saw more books being published concerning transgender. In Transparent, Cris Beam explores the world of the transgender teenagers living on the streets of Los Angeles. In her book, She’s not the Man I Married, Helen Boyd continues her discussion and exploration of what it means to be the partner of a transgender person.

In Iowa we have seen the continued growth of and interest in the TG community. There are now opportunities for support throughout the state. There are groups for all facets of the TG community. One of the most exciting developments has been the launch of a group specifically for individuals still in high school or college. On a personal note, in 2007 I was able to give 14 presentations around the state on Transgender. If you would like me to come and present for your school or organization, please contact me.

2007 was a good year for the Transgender community. Let’s do our best to make 2008 even better.

Recent thoughts

O wow, it's been forever. I'm sorry, life seems to get more and more busy.

One of the things that I have bee thinking about recently is my own status as transgender, specifically as a crossdresser. These thoughts are a direct result of my talking with a counselor on a regular basis on non-transgender issues. So here is what I've been thinking about.

My entire life I have been overly concerned with how people see, view and think about me. The publics perception of who I am is very important to me. This is probably the direct result of having parents who both had careers and lifestyles where they felt public perception was important, and they incubated those same feelings within me (and perhaps my brother). This need for public acceptance has influenced me in many ways throughout my life. It controls my hair style, my fashion sense, my jewelry sense, my lack of tattoos and non-ear body piercings. It influences my social circles, and my use of language. The thing I have been wondering and thinking about recently is if it also plays a role in my transgender nature.

My whole life I have felt that I was different than most boys gender-wise. I knew I was transgender, but I never felt like I should have been a girl. Granted there are times when I wish for breasts (every time I put on a bra, or a low cut top), and times when I look between my legs and think about what things would be like if my thing wasn't there, I can't genetically father any children, so what use are my testes?, but I never really wanted to be a woman. I was happy being a man wasn't I? The thing is, how much of my feeling my transgender identification as a crossdresser was out of an ingrained desire not to disappoint or cause too many waves for those who know or encounter me?

In other words, could my psychological need not to disappoint others be at the root of my identifying as a crossdresser, and not as a transsexual person, or as any other category on the transgender spectrum? I don't know the answer to this. It's going to take some more time to think through things. Of course these thoughts are coming at the most crazy, hectic, busy time of year. Who knows, maybe sometime after the holidays I will be able to dedicate some more mental time to figuring out a few of these things.

If I don't have a chance to write again, I wish all of you a blessed holiday season and a happy new year!

History Lesson

I ran across this piece this morning. I am not going to quote all of it, you can read it for yourself. I am thrilled that someone took the time to research and present this information. It's important for people to realize that transgender is not a new issue, it's something that has been around for a while. It may be hard to believe, but trans activism actually predates gay/ lesbian activism.

This history lesson is brought to you today by Susan Stryker. She earned her Ph.D. in United States History at UC Berkeley in 1992, the same year she transitioned male-to- female, helped found Transgender Nation, and got fired from her first job for being transgendered.

Here are a few awesome snippets from her paper:

1. Transgender is not a recent fad; Anti-transgender discrimination is not new.
In the United States, cities all across the country started passing ordinances against crossdressing beginning in the 1840s. That’s not a typo. The 1840s. A common phrase in these laws made it a crime for a man or a woman to appear in public “in a dress not belonging to his or her sex.”


5. Did gay activism start before trans activism in the United States?
No. It appears to be the other way around. In a pair of books called Autobiography of an Androgyne (1918) and The Female Impersonators (1922), the author Earl Lind (a self- described “androgyne,” “hermaphrodite,” and “fairy” in New York, who also used the name Jennie June) described his/her social world in New York City. According to Lind, a group of New York androgynes led by one Roland Reeves formed “a little club” called The Cercle Hermaphroditos in 1895, based on their self-perceived need “to unite for defense against the world’s bitter persecution.”


11. Why didn’t transgender people build their own movement, instead of piggybacking on the gay and lesbian movement?
They did. Starting in the mid-1960s, transgender people organized on their own behalf.
They established support groups, educated social and medical service providers about their own needs, published newsletters, talked to the media, and did all the things that people do when they are building a movement. By the early 1970s, a group in San
Francisco called the National Transsexual Counseling Unit employed two peer counselors and coordinated an impressive network of transgender-related services. There was a group in New York called the Queen’s Liberation Front, a group in Philadelphia called the Radical Queens, and a group in Los Angeles called the Transsexual Action Organization. There was activism at the local level all across the country.


14. So you mean the transgender activism of the past decade is not a new thing?
That’s right. Since the early 1990s, when possibilities opened up for alliance with other people working on progressive social change issues, the transgender movement has flourished beyond the wildest hopes of many who have been involved in the struggle for transgender justice for decades. But this is the resurgence of a dormant movement rather than the birth of something entirely new. It’s only now, after decades of work by countless thousands of people, that transgender issues are getting a candid look from members of the general public. This is an historic moment. There have never been more people paying attention to this issue. We have to mobilize everything within our power to win the fight for transgender equality. Knowing our history is part of that fight.

When I finished reading this paper, I was fired up and recharged in my fight for full transgender equality. As the transgender community, we need to get the word out about the important work that has been done in the past by our sisters and brothers, and continue to work for the full-inclusion of all transgender people in the rights, responsibilities and protections that society offers to others.

Labels

Holy moley, it's been ages since I posted.

One of the difficulties that the transgender community faces is that all of us have different definitions and preferences for the many terms and categories - CD/TV/TS/DG/TG/Etc. I say this is a difficulty because our division, causes confusion with the general public; they don't know how to talk about us (in a good way). One dresser finds the use of TV insulting and prefers CD, another person who in their dressing and identity is exactly the same finds CD to be incomplete and prefers TG, another identical dresser says TG is only for TS and prefers TV. No wonder the non-dressing community is unsure of how to deal with us, we are unsure of how to effectively talk about who we are. I think it would benefit the entire community if we could figure out a standard definition/ label that could be agreed upon and used by everyone so that we can provide clarity to this confusing world of gender/ gender identity/ gender expression.

We have the term transgender. It's supposed to serve as a unifying term for all the various terms that are being used. The problem is that some members of the community do not identify as TG, they feel that TG is really for the transsexual person, not the occasional crossdresser/ transvestite. Is this about personal preferences/ cultural differences (transvestite is common and accepted in the UK, and not so much here in the US) or is it a reflection of the lack of quality education and explanation of the various terms, and the need for a unifying one?

The question is, how do we go about attempting to do this, and is it even necessary or desired by the community (in other words, am I speaking to an empty room)? In my opinion, I think it is necessary. I also think that the only way in which this can happen is for the transgender community to unify itself on its own. We need to settle on some standard definitions, and usages of the specific terms that are in use. We also need to embrace some sort of unifying single term (transgender/ gender queer/ etc.). I'm not sure about how to go about this in an effective way, but I think if we can present a united front to the public, our battles will be more effective as we will be causing less confusion to the general populace since we are all talking the same language.

Hope the language I'm using is understandable.