October 19, 2008

The Pronoun Game, part two

When I first met Miccah, it was through a mutual acquaintance. Denise had lived next door to us for a year or so in college and had recently moved into her first all-by-herself apartment near campus. And then one of the banes of college life reared its head: we had a rapist haunting the area - and he'd specifically been targeting the run-down crappily lit apartment complex where Denise now lived. She quickly made friends with Miccah, who did handywork for the complex - and when Miccah became ill and couldn't work, Denise took Miccah in. She did this partly out of a genuine desire to help someone in need - and partly because Miccah looked like Miccah could help protect her from the rapist (even while being sick).

Did you notice I'm playing the pronoun game yet?

I was perhaps 20 or 21, had only been living away from my rather conservative folks and sheltered life for just a couple of years and Miccah's story was beyond anything I'd ever imagined. Denise took Miccah in because Mikey looked like a guy who could take care of himself - and provide some protection for Denise against this campus rapist. But what Mikey had fallen ill with was ... female problems.

Miccah had been born female, but for whatever reason, Miccah's father raised the child as a boy. Registered in school as a boy, used the boy's bathroom, everything. Teachers thought Miccah was a boy. It's not like anyone asked for a physical check. Mikey remembers asking Pop one day why he didn't have a penis like the other boys and Pop replied, "You'll get yours soon. They all grow at different rates, and you'll get yours soon."

Nice, huh?

Well, the long and short of that is Miccah really is more of a male than a female in terms of thought process and behaviour. We can argue until the cows come home over whether this is a nature or nurture kinda deal - my best guess in Miccah's case is that it's probably a little of both.

Who knows how Pop was going to explain away the biological female awakening impending ... as it was Miccah's mom took custody of Mikey at the age of ten.

Imagine this for a minute. Really think about it. Everything you know about who you are during elementary school comes from your parents. And if they've snowballed the teachers into cooperating with that? Think back to when you were ten. All the things you knew about yourself. The stuff you liked to do. The kids you hung out with.

Now imagine your mother coming in to talk to you and telling you as gently as possible ... that you're really not who you think you are. That you are really a member of the opposite sex.

Can you even begin to contemplate your reaction?

Can you imagine your reaction as suits are replaced with dresses or dresses replaced with suits? Can you imagine your favourite doll replaced with a Tonka truck or favourite Tonka replaced with a Madame Alexander doll?

Sure, many of us played with toys that are supposedly "boy" toys or "girl" toys. But can you imagine suddenly feeling like you couldn't play with the stuff you loved best and your mom was forcing you to play with stuff you had no interest in?

By the time I met Mikey, he was in his mid-to-late twenties and I was in my early-to-mid twenties. Maybe five years between us. I'd never met anyone who was a transsexual before. And, with as much as I understood that Mikey would prefer to be a biological male as well as feeling like a male ... I didn't fully understand the way Mikey felt.

My simple reasoning at the time was this: I was cool with Mikey thinking he was a male trapped in a female body. Made sense to me. He didn't seem like a female at all.

But I wasn't going to use the male pronoun in reference to Miccah - because he hadn't had the surgery yet. I fully supported his decision to have the surgery, but until such a time, he was a she to me.

What I really didn't understand was how this attitude made Mikey feel ... and just how difficult and expensive it would be to get that kind of surgery done. I mean, it's not like it's covered under most health plans - and it's not like most people can just walk into a clinic and have it done. It's a long damn process ... and it's damned expensive.

For someone born female to have the surgery involves first finding a therapist who specializes in Gender Identity Disorder. We're talking some long and involved sessions for the therapist to determine that yes, this person does have GID and is a candidate for moving forward. Next, the person has to begin living as the opposite sex. In many cases - like Mikey's - this was a change they'd already made. And for Mikey it was easy. He was built like a guy. Not a football player, but he definitely had that lanky, sinewy look that a lot of 20something men have. If you passed Miccah on the street, you'd have said he, not she.

At any rate, after passing for a year, you have to do things like get your driver's license changed from the birth sex to the intended sex. (Really, this usually happens during the year of "passing.") You also start taking hormones during this time. So for female to male transitioning, you start shooting testosterone. It lowers your voice at least somewhat and often means facial hair growth as well. The body does begin to change and adapt.

Some female to male transsexuals basically live in this state for the rest of their lives. After all, whether or not one has the genitalia that it looks like you probably have is really not anyone's business but that person's and their partner. But for those who do choose the surgery route, there's the mastectomies and then the physical building of a penis.

This ain't for the weak of heart.

Miccah, the last time I talked with him, had never really progressed to the point of the testosterone. He's not had the world's easiest life and every time I hear from him, there's been another round of insane tragedies. The loss of a music career just as it was getting started ... girlfriend troubles (yes, they all know!) ... bar fights ... having to move towns to try to land jobs in music somehow ... having her beloved dog kidnapped (complete with note) ... another dog impaled when he tried to jump a fence to find Mikey. It's never easy.

So there's never been the money and the insurance to really start counseling ... and never the money for the testosterone shots, much less the surgeries needed.

And who am I, really, to pass judgment and call Mikey "she" when it's so obvious that even with the small tidbit of femaleness that isn't even obvious, that Miccah is a "he" and has always been so no matter what the physical biology says.

I've grown a lot in the last not-quite-20 years since I first met Miccah. Today, despite his outward biology, I look deeper. He's comfortable with himself and who he is. Unless you insist on calling him she. Then, he's uncomfortable with you - not with himself. He knows who he is and he enjoys being himself.

Who am I to question that?

Gender is more than our biological sex. It's a sociological set of expectations which change from culture to culture. Some so-called "primitive" cultures knew that some women were born male and some men were born female and they had places for such people - not as outcasts - but places where they belonged.

This insistence on the male provider and the female caregiver is a trope that we've seen throughout history, yes - but the absolute rigid insistence on it is relatively new in history. It's really time and past time that we recognize the diversity of each individual and be glad that we are NOT all the same, that we can learn from the differences in each other and continue to grow.

Were we all alike, we would not have utopia ... we would grow stagnant and boreded and we would falter.

In my last post I spoke about the tv show Bones and in particular the episode called "The He in the She." I laud the writers for having the strength to NOT write an episode where everyone was carefully correct because that's just not how it happens when we are confronted with something outside of our experience - even when we want to be supportive. Instead, we struggle and fumble and get frustrated and call someone "it" in the heat of a moment when we can't decide if we're talking about he or she. It's in our fumblings with what is new and different that we learn and grow.

I know that if I had not met Mikey when I did, I would not have been as supportive and accepting of other people with differences later on.

Even if I did have to fumble with his pronouns for a while. Even if I do still fumble with his pronouns today when I talk about his history. (It's still not easy to say "His mom had to tell him he was a girl.")

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:23 PM | Comments (2) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Struggles | Stumble

October 18, 2008

The Pronoun Game

I love observing how people interact and particularly with my interest in the autism spectrum, I am utterly fascinated with the television show, Bones. Each one of the characters in the show has some kind of serious issue interacting with other people. Zach, first an intern/grad student of Dr. Brennan, is an obvious example of a character with high-functioning autism or Asperger's - a condition which very obviously meant he had troubles interacting with others. He is mystified by the emotional reactions and actions of others and tries to always live by logic. Dr. Brennan (Bones) herself seems to also be on the autism spectrum, although with her vast experience in field anthropology, she seems to comprehend people's emotional rollercoasters better than Zach - but, it's still from a very intellectual understanding rather than being a part of the whole messy act of being human. She often has conversations with FBI agent Booth where Booth attempts to explain emotions to her. Her best friend, Angela, also spends an inordinate amount of time explaining human reaction and foibles to her - often attempting to explain to Brennan why she herself is reacting a particular way.

Angela and Booth, however, aren't paragons of perfect human interaction either. They also have their very flawed and confused interactions. Angela has embraced the idea of being a "free spirit" and artist so much so that she often reacts primarily out of a stubborn desire to stay within the confines of her definition of "free spirit & artist." When she reacts illogically and emotionally, she does so without apology or, often, explanation. It is what it is. And, this eventually leads a character who often appears to be the most normal in her interactions into a rather stupid decision (to break up with Hodgins).
Naturally, she's somewhat the opposite of Brennan, creating a nice foil.

FBI agents are rarely known for their stellar social skills, so it's not surprising that Agent Booth also has his issues interacting with others although he does have a wonderful ability to read his suspects - an ability that usually confuses Brennan. Booth reads people's tells and body language when they're being questioned ... but he still finds it difficult to do the same with the people he knows.

While the show is technically a crime solver with a different twist from the CSI genre (since almost everyone in the show is a "squint," or scientist, instead of law enforcement), the real interest and drama of the show (not to mention comedy) is to look at how these people relate to each other - particularly how they screw up these interactions. In one episode, the murder Booth and Brennan are investigating involves "pony play." Apparently some people like to pretend they're horses for their sexual excitement. (Frankly, I could have lived my life without knowing that ... but there you are.) Booth is as startled and somewhat confused by this as I was ... Brennan, on the other hand, reacts as an anthropologist studying a new tribe. She explains in scientific terms to Booth what these people get out of it and why they do it - she looks like she understands - but she explains chunks of it in front of the pony play folk, which offends them. Booth understands why it offends them, but he's flabbergasted and somewhat judgmental about them - so he looks like he understands their reactions, but he also offends them in a different way.

In other words, they both understand a piece of the human relationships - but they're completely separate pieces and neither has the whole thing.

It's fascinating to watch.

My favourite social gaffe was when Brennan walked into an interrogation room with Booth to speak with a profoundly overweight character. She immediately said something to Booth about how people who are profoundly overweight often have a funky odour because they can sometimes get a fungus in between the folds of skin. Booth is horrified that Brennan would say such a thing where the character can hear. Brennan protests, "but it's true" as if that makes it okay. It's not that she is trying to hurt the character ... she just doesn't see scientific fact as causing emotional hurt. If it's true, then it shouldn't hurt. In fact, Brennan goes on to point out to the character the very real health problems caused by such a level of obesity and tells her that she should lose weight.

Of course the character is offended and Booth is horrified all over again, trying to get Brennan to STFU. Despite all of her knowledge of how people work from her anthropology studies ... Brennan is completely clueless to the reactions she causes. She looks like a complete ass in this scene, once again underscoring what I feel is the point of the show: how we interact.

So, knowing all of this about the show, I was somewhat surprised to read on Womanist Musings a reaction to one of the more recent episodes, "The He in the She." Since Brennan is a forensic anthropologist, she and her team at the Smithsonian are often called in to help solve murder cases where the remains are in a rather bad state. In this particular episode, we're confronted by either a grad student making a weird mistake or a very unusual set of remains. The new intern (to replace Zach, who is now incarcerated) declares that according to the bones on this set of remains, the person was male.

The team's boss, vetting the new guy as he does his examination, blinks at his declaration. She announces the body is female because "that," she points out, "is a vagina." He insists the bone structure is male.

They're both right.

The remains belong to someone who had been born male and then underwent sexual reassignment surgery to become female.

As the team begins to piece together the mystery, there's some amount of stumbling around the entire transsexual issue. Agent Booth in particular has a difficult time - not with the victim being trans - but with trying to settle on a pronoun. At one point in his fumbling, he begins to call the victim "it" causing Brennan to squawk about giving the victim some dignity. Booth spends a fair amount of time trying to fumble his way through his reasoning and why he's settled on "it" for now. The other characters are clearly irritated with him over this. At another point, he fumbles around and claims that they should always call "him" "her" because that's what "he ... she was when she died and she deserves some respect."

Now the author over at Womanist Musings has an excellent point - it's annoying as hell that when American television portrays a transsexual person, that person is either the comic relief or the victim of horrible tragedy, but never just another person, just another character. But, I remember not so long ago when that was true of all gay characters. Now, however, we're seeing more gay characters who are "just" characters - not there just for comic relief ... not there to show the terrible plight of the queer. (Where I disagree with the author is that the writers of the show were somehow disrespectful to the issue of transsexuals.)

That's pretty much the way it happens on American television. Bring in the marginalized as comic relief, bring them in to show the tragedy ... until the mainstream viewers get used to seeing that group ... and then they can be just characters like everyone else. It's annoying, I certainly agree.

But I think that Bones did this in a really interesting way. First of all, the show revolves around odd forensic mysteries - what's more unusual than a body with both male and female "tells"?? Secondly, you have scientists having to grapple with pronoun because it's got to be jarring to look at a male knee and say "she." It's not that they're being disrespectful or rude - they're reacting to the biological part in front of them at the moment when they speak.

And then, of course, you have the very Catholic Agent Booth trying to grapple with the facts he's getting from his squints ... and with the real confusion of speaking of the transsexual person's past. After all, the history of Patrick could be important to the death of Patricia and it is honestly confusing or difficult to switch between talking about Patrick as "he" when he was an evangelical minister ... and Patricia's ministry and her death.

The characters constantly have to flip back and forth between his history and her history as they put together the facts and clues in the case.

I think this very much mirrors the confusion that many people go through when they first meet someone who is transsexual. It's not that the writers or the characters of Bones were making fun of or somehow disrespecting transfolk as they were reflecting how we react. To me, that made the episode a really important and valuable one rather than one which somehow negated the dignity of transfolk - it attempted to bring the issue to an audience which might not know about it, or which might be rather hoping to avoid it. It was an episode to raise awareness and show us our human foibles and fumblings through the reactions of some wonderfully rendered and flawed characters.

Next time, I'll tell you about the first time I met someone who identified as transsexual ... and how I reacted.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:02 AM | Comments (5) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Struggles | Stumble

October 8, 2008

Fifteen Months Later

Fifteen months is taking its toll on this blog. You would think that not having a steady gig would mean I had more time to write. Unfortunately, it means that I'm not getting the constant stimulation I need to be able to write. Despite the wide variety of topics and issues I would normally need to write about ... I am oddly quiet.

Every sentence I start to write about how my partner and I actually bought a house we could afford instead of doing what many of her co-workers did ... buying the house they were loaned money for, along with two brand new cars ... I think, "I should be working on promoting Oppositional Design" ... or "I should be reading my Typography book" ... or "I should build a newsletter or a new logo or something just to add it to my portfolio." Or, even worse, "I should clean the house."

After an incredibly warm job market a few weeks ago, I'm back to wondering where I've gone wrong and if it's something I can change or is it just this crappy economy?

I have no way of knowing.

I really wish I'd manage to land the job doing emailers for a large musical instruments company. I think I could have had a LOT of fun doing that ... but it was apparently not meant to be. Again.

I am profoundly grateful that my partner still has a job. I wish she could get out of there as it's, I feel certain, contributing to her constant migraines ... but there's little out there for her, either. The market is simply too tight.

I am profoundly grateful that we purchased a home within our means - and that we were somewhat conservative about what those means were. Sure, I'd love a home with normal dimensions instead of something so small - but we can afford this and it's ours.

I'm not a big stats person ... but I do feel regret that I've managed to slip from a pagerank of 5 back down to a 3. I'm no longer getting 500+ hits a day ... I'm lucky to get about 200. And while I still get hits for those damn Red Monkey jeans - I get more hits from Nerfers about modifying their Nerf guns now. (And most of them want to bitch at me and miss my point altogether. Let me repeat: I DO NOT WANT TO BAN NERF GUNS OR NERF WARS. Geez. I just think more parents should be more aware of what their kids are doing and what they're playing with. I also think that there is no such thing as a "toy" sniper rifle. On the other hand, I enjoyed modifying my Nerf Maverick into a steampunk looking thing.)

The blog is a bit adrift and aimless at the moment and I apologize to all of my readers, old and new. Right now, I'm afraid that I am a bit adrift and ... not exactly aimless ... but feeling somewhat lost.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:54 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | Struggles | Stumble

August 31, 2008

#Gustav

Last year, a small group from our church and a couple of other local churches in our denomination made the two-day trip down to Lake Charles in Louisiana to do what they could to help the area so devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This was not some mission of proselytizing. This was not to further any personal agendas or create new members. It was purely and simply a work trip to help out those in need.

When they came back, there was an even bigger push for our tiny church to continue working. This time, we were put on the schedule to work the 9th ward in December of '08. (And also to go to New Mexico.)

Now, I fear, it won't just be Katrina that our folks help to clean up. Three years later, New Orleans has not fully bounced back. There are tent shanty-towns. There are numerous houses still marked for demolition. The stories of crime and corruption have depressed me beyond belief. Contractors who accepted jobs and payment ... and then disappeared into the night. The ACE stuffing newspapers into levees instead of dirt. Graffiti artist Banksy even came by for some satire (don't know how long this link will reflect New Orleans.)

Because of my allergies, I'm not going on the New Orleans mission trip. I still have no job and no health insurance and I'm highly allergic to mold and mildew. Humidity triggers my asthma. Louisiana, at the best of times, is not a great environment for me, despite the fact that I'm sure I would love it.

But, our pastor is from Louisiana. From a little town on the Cane River (the same town featured in the movie Steel Magnolias). And now I have blogger friends and Twitter friends who live in or near New Orleans. All of these connections have caused me to pay even more attention to an area for which I already had a deep interest. (I may be more or less allergic to the whole damn place, but I've always been utterly fascinated by it and its history.)

Now, of course, Gustav is menacing the coastline again. One friend writes of her "concern for New Orleans. And all of our lives thereafter. I wonder how we can come back and live where Cat 4’s and 5’s are apparently a real potential threat every damn season. I wonder how this can’t be an effect of global warming. I wonder where we’d move if we decide to forsake our beloved motherland."

You see, for all of the smart-asses who say that if you live on the coast, you have to be ready for "these storms" -- the problem is not a single category four or five hurricane. It's the increasing frequency of such hits. It's the fact that some of the people in power got complacent. The levees were famously unready for a Cat5 and the surge. But no one wanted to actually spend the money to prepare for an "eventually" or a "maybe." And now the area pays the price.

I have heard people say that this is what happens when you live in a low-lying area on the coast and they could choose to live somewhere else.

But I think the better question is why is this happening so frequently now? Haven't we had some personal hand in this? Global warming ... building the levees to change the coastline and waterflow ... making former swamplands into building land ...

In a country known to take rugged individualism to a fault and perhaps even to a vice - how can anyone in the States say something so stupid and callous as "if you don't like it, leave"? Isn't the driving force of the United States to change that which we don't like? To improve it?

Hell, the Puritans didn't leave the U.K. for the eventually-to-be U.S. until they were forced. We are a stubborn country based on the belief that we can effect change and inflict our will. Leaving before we are unequivocally forced out is simply not in our social DNA.

It's a complex problem, not a simple one. We need to figure out the complex problem of why there are "suddenly" so many huge hurricanes bearing down. Did we contribute to their creation? Can we slow down the frequency of them without causing damage to our eco-system? Can we stop doing something or start doing something which will help? And if we find something that will help this issue - can we be sure it won't cause other ones?

On Twitter, #gustav is the hash code ... frankly, I have enough of an idea from the people I Twitter with. I don't want to look for further conversations which will only depress me. I have tasted a slice and it is both bitter and frightening.

Meanwhile, I am hoping that Gustav's introduction to the States is all bluster and no substance. That everyone stays safe. That our church's mission group truly goes to the 9th ward to clean up the aftermath of Katrina ... not Katrina and Gustav.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:47 AM | Comments (0) | Struggles | Stumble

July 31, 2008

Attempting to Release Steam

You've heard of counting your blessings, of course. This is the opposite. I'm attempting to exorcise all the crap that pretty much completely overwhelmed me to the point of serious meltdown yesterday.

The list:

• I was laid off July 11, 2007
  
• I enjoy freelance projects, but I suck at marketing myself so that I will land them
  
• I spiral fractured both bones in my "good" leg June 4
  
• I can't put weight on that leg for at least another two months.
  
• There are few jobs in this area for designers - and approximately 80 people applying for each opening
  
• There are no jobs in this area for writers
  
• The hospital wants $23,000 for the surgery on my leg - the good news here is that they do have an assistance program which I'm trying to get worked out now
  
• There's probably another $1000 to $2000 in bills from X-ray and anesthesia - I'm afraid to open them
  
• Our house is so small I can barely get through it with my current limited mobility
  
• My unbroken leg has a bad knee and ankle - and it's totally stressed out from doing all the work now.
  
• The server hard drive died a foul death today. There will be no printing until I get a new one installed.
  
• I just found out that two of my best friends are either getting divorces or the break up is fairly certain.
  
• I can't drive anywhere and can't really take public transportation, either.
  
• I had a heckuva time attempting to get a ride to the doctor's office for my appointment today.
  
• I would love to get the cast off and get into a boot today. But I know that's not going to happen.
  
• My li'l baby Scoutie girl is at the vet's. She has a back problem and they are giving her IV steroids and they're hopeful she should recover. I, however, am a total mess over that.
  
• Just got a rejection letter after yet another job interview.

Okay. Let's hope that's all out of my system and my luck turns around now. It'd be nice.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:40 AM | Comments (7) | Struggles | Stumble

June 18, 2008

Balance

Surgery is over and done with - a plate on each bone and more screws than I want to think about. I am now truly screwed. (The obvious sometimes must be said.) I'm moving around much better now that my foot is actually connected to my leg again.

I worried most of yesterday about whether or not I'd really be able to make the mission trip to the Dinetah (Navajo lands) in New Mexico. The discharge process was long and ridiculously drawn out, leaving my leg down and poorly balanced for far too long. By the time I got home, every slight jar hurt like hell and I didn't think I'd be able to handle the 3 day drive.

Today, however, things are much better. The only real problem is when my muscles jerk. You know, you've seen the crazy commercials about Restless Leg Syndrome, right? It's one of those disorders that people make fun of because it just sounds so stupid.

Unless you're trying to sleep and your body jerks you awake. And then you try to sleep and your body jerks you awake.

Now think about your newly operated on leg ... and the muscles twitching or jerking. The movement would wake you up anyway, but add the pain to that and ... whooooo boy-howdy, buckeroo, that ain't the way to get good rest. Luckily the pain lasts just a moment and the aching that comes after doesn't last too long either.

Tomorrow afternoon we're having friends come over to watch the cats ... and we're heading out to the Dinetah. I'm so excited I could just explode. Of course, with all the mess the last two weeks, we're not as prepared as we'd like to be and sadly this means the other half is running around like crazy trying to get everything set. I feel horrible because I need all sorts of stuff out of what we've taken to calling the "disaster room" and I can't get in there to get what I need. I've got to finish printing out some references to work on some art whilst I'm gone. (Not that I'll have much free time except during the van drive.) Then she'll have to go back in the room, dig out the good resume paper so I can print out 3 copies of my resume and 3 cover letters so I can send those out while I'm in New Mexico so I can keep my name out and about.

We've got to make sure the doc called in another refill on the pain meds - because it would be BAD to run out whilst on the trip. Hopefully I won't need more than what I already have ... but I don't wanna chance some 25-30 hours in the van on the way home without pain meds. So, I have to make sure the doc calls it in - and the other half picks it up. We need a couple of house keys to give to the friends who are going to stay here whilst we're gone. I should get to the bank one last time and I need to snag a couple of disposable cameras. And the other half needs to dig through the disaster room to pull out my backpack.

I hate relying on someone else. I'm not good at it. I can't help but feel guilty if someone else "has" to do something for me.

But for the next 10 days, I suppose I'll be attempting to learn the balance between helping others ... and letting others help me. Probably be even more of a learning experience for me this way than it would have been otherwise.

At any rate ... it'll be quiet here for the next 10 days. For the first time in years, I'll be completely disconnected from the computer. No 'net access where I'm going. No email. No web. No blogs. No BBC Online.

Me, off-line for 10 days. Wish me luck.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:22 PM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble