Trans issues
More letters in response to Alix Dobkin's Jan. 26 column. See last week's Outlines for additional letters.
I am writing in response to the Dobkin piece in the Jan. 26 issue of Outlines. I am a 20-year-old FTM in the middle of my transition and I would like to comment that Dobkin's article was not only offensive but extraordinarily misguided as well. To begin, I would like to say, that even though I did identify as a dyke ( and I use this word, as I never id'd as lesbian, but as a dyke ) I never identified as butch. Not only was I not butch, I was not femme either. I was a tranny boy, and now that I have come to realize that, my identity and the life I am leading now has infinite possibilities. I was not butch, I was a boy, the closest thing one might be able to tag me with might have been "faggot-dyke," but even that does not nearly approximate the complexity of my gender, in both my personal expression and in its meaning to me. Ms Dobkin, many of the FTMs I know, myself included, were not butches, nor do we continue to be butches, as you implied. We are not lesbians in denial, but transmen very readily embracing a very real, very queer identity. I know that it is not butchness that led me to transition, in fact, butchness was one of the things that held me back. Believing the myth that FTMs are or had to be butch before they made the choice to go on hormones, I believed I was not butch enough to be trans. Eventually, however, I realized the error of my thoughts, and then began to understand the very real line between butch identity and FTM identity. Both are of equal value, both are very justified modes of being, but both represent two distinct ways of self-identifying which should not be skewed. I am not, however, saying that there is nothing "trans" about butchness. Many butches I have encountered consider themselves to be transgender, and I have also met butches who do not i.d. as women but only as butch.
Ms Dobkin's article smacks of the kind of transphobia that is so insipid that many of us can not find a way to fight it. We are caught in a sort of catch 22, which I have seen many transwomen facing when attempting to battle transphobia in a lesbian separatist environment. First, obviously, if we do not speak up, then we will never be heard. If we are too loud, then we are either a ) transwomen who are retaining "male privilege" or b ) transmen who are over asserting their newfound "male privilege." Don't get me wrong, I do believe that there is male privilege in this country ( for white males ) , but I think that being trans automatically excludes one from getting or retaining this privilege. The power denied transpeople automatically rules them out of any sort of privilege handout. Dobkin further twists the arm of the trannyguy behind his back by first, insulting transmen, putting identity markers in quotation marks and otherwise belittling/patronizing an already shat upon identity, and by implying that we FTMs are "nothing but" a mixed-up and privilege seeking bunch of butch lesbians. When we attempt to speak up, however, Dobkin throws us right into the fire, saying that we are hyper-PC-ifying the situation and calling everyone transphobes. Well, Ms Dobkin, I'm sorry to say it, but you are a transphobe. What you said about FTM identity "stealing" young butches sounds an awfully lot like what right-wing conservatives say about queers "stealing" or "corrupting" America's youth. You've painted a very neat picture of yourself around your transphobia, however, as a "poor little me," one who's losing her community to a bunch of evil FTMs. Look around you, Ms. Dobkin, and you will see that your community is thriving. Some of them have even gone so far as to embrace FTMs and to fight the queer fight alongside one another as sisters and brothers. You really are paranoid to think that the FTM community will in any way destroy butch identity or any other facet of the lesbian community. I repeat: we are FTMs, not lesbians.
Finally, I would like to add that I think an article such as Dobkins, if it were to have another focus, and the hate speech ( yes, I think it's hate speech ) were directed at any other minority group, would garner a response against the article that would prove to be overwhelming. Dobkin has not only insulted the FTM community, derided us and otherwise attempted to remove us of any real voice ( which we have only recently attained ) , she has also, by painting the picture that she is somehow the victim of tranny-ness, made it impossible for us to respond in a manner that does not further implicate us against her charges. I am saddened and repulsed by this article, and while everyone has a right to an opinion, some opinions can perpetuate ignorance, hatred, and lead to devastating ends.
Max A. Parrish, One sissy of a tranny
Dear Alix:
Thank you for your two-part article in the last two editions of Outlines [ Jan. 19 and 26 ] . I apologize for being a little late in responding, but I no longer read the gay papers and so I didn't know about your piece until the other day when a friend of mine pointed it out to me.
I hope you don't mind if I gush nostalgically for a moment, but I always find myself smiling when I hear your name, like a sublime remembrance from some long distant past. You were one of my late teen and young adult idols. You were Lesbiana to me. Everything that made me believe I could do this, live this life and be strong and proud and female and queer was in you. You were the day-to-day and the Mountain Moving on Saturday nights. You were my smell of whole grain bed fresh out of the oven beneath the windows where the crystals hung and my Wanderground with a cup of herbal tea. You were the emissary of the Great Mother and the power of womyn all rolled into one. Thank you for those memories, Alix. Thank you for a whole section of my life. And thank you also for loving lesbians for your whole life.
Thank you and good-bye.
It was a bittersweet life, Alix, but it was your life, not mine. While I was professing to be merely a woman trapped in the wrong society, I harbored that dark and horrible secret. I believed—I still believe—that women can be and do anything. I knew I wasn't supposed to think I was supposed to look like the guy on the underwear packages, but I did. I tied myself into hideous, self-hating knots to be a dyke. I would stamp it out, ignore it to death or die trying. I didn't die, nor did I live. I did nothing. To further the Great Cause of Wimmin, I sacrificed my life. I lost nearly two decades. Then one day I couldn't fight anymore, so I laid aside my armor and made my body my home.
Are young, butch dykes who feel unequal to the challenge of living queer hopping the gender fence these days? Were young, straight girls who lived at the bottom of the popularity chain choosing to be lesbians in those days? It's the same question, really. And more than anything else, it gives us an insight into the mind of the asker. "How could anybody want to do something that seems SO weird to me?" is the refrain of the ages.
I envy the certitude with which you analyze what you observe, but your conclusions are simply erroneous. We cannot presume the incidence of rape is really going up when it is more logical to conclude that more women are feeling hopeful enough to report it. Likewise, lesbian youth aren't jumping ship in greater numbers than ever before, it is just that fewer of them are willing to martyr their lives to someone else's cause.
E. Huntington Behr
