Bible, Trans*, and Identity

CitizenLink, a blog of the Focus on the Family, is concerned with trans* people and what they  (and their requests of society) do to God’s plan:

• We’re in a World of Gender Confusion
• ‘Transgenderism’ and the Deconstruction of Gender
• What about “Transgenderism”?
• What about Intersexuality?

If  you’re concerned with these issues that Focus on the Family raises, you might check out a book by Justin Tanis that deals with issues of faith (blog entry here) in a different, but still biblical, way.

More to the point, I suppose, is that Focus  on the Family is trying to apply some sort of biblical law to current civic and social realities, and I simply don’t believe that such an argument carries any logical weight.  It’s not a matter of my not hearing the arguments, but rather a case of not recognizing those arguments’ validity.

One may argue about the nature of rationality, and that’s precisely where a recent discussion took a friend and me.  On this friend’s view, I was delusional for not recognizing that there are two natural and god-given genders.  On my view, my friend is delusional in insisting on promoting simplistic narratives of gender and  sex in the face of documented evidence that tells us gender fluidity is real and that intersex, transgender, and transsexual people are real and would like to be recognized as real people with real rights.

I suppose it becomes a matter of the basis for our rationality, whether it be logic, or common experiences, or empiricism, or faith, or ancient texts, or consensus, or what-have-you.   We don’t have to take ideological sides on modernism versus postmodernism, or religious versus secular, in order to arrive at a concept of rationality that serves the largest number of us, but we do have to make an effort to cast the rationality net as broadly as possible.  Social discourse depends on it.

 

Media Exposure Choices

I received this email invitation in my Facebook account the other day, and was reminded of a couple of previous incidents, one with Mara Keisling and one with my local newspaper. I think things are different now, but despite the benefits to the trans*community, I still think family has to come first. Selfish? Overly protective? Maybe.

Hi Joyce,

I’m working for a production company that is producing a documentary for PBS about being an out LGBTQ person in America. It’s going to be a 1-hour national PBS documentary event that will share a layered collection of powerful, compelling and poignant stories of LGBTQ Americans and their families. We’ll be interviewing some celebrities along with typical (and not so typical) Americans who fall along the spectrum. Your story came to mind and I was wondering whether you were interested or comfortable with sharing your story?

The production team has done Emmy Award winning work: check out the link below to learn more about their films and the team I’m working with.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

My response:

I’m going to have to think about this and confer with my wife. What do you think the odds are of getting any air-time? How specific would the documentary be regarding my workplace, etc? I ask not because of myself, but because Mary Jo and I agreed we’d keep the trans* stuff low-key for a few years for the sake of the kids, who are in Junior High right now. Once they’re out of high school in 5 years, then publicity would be much less of an issue.

Her response:

I think the odds are high for on-air time if you agree to being interviewed and are comfortable sharing your story. I completely understand the decision to be low-key, but we are definitely looking to profile a handful of dynamic individuals who are living extraordinary lives. We’re looking for people who are comfortable discussing their experiences, so again, the chances are high that we’d be looking to discuss workplace/family issues. Up to you, really, and again, completely understandable if this type of thing is a little to “close to home” as far as your desire to maintain the privacy of your family, etc. Not sure when we’ll actually begin filming, but PBS has rolled out a bit of funding and we’re in development right now — I honestly think that you represent ad really key and interesting part of the LGBT community and so you immediately popped into mind when I thought about people I’d like to see represented in this piece. Think about it, and if you’d like to speak further to one of our Senior Producers about further details and possibility of involvement, you can email the producer at xxxx@xxx.xx.

My response:

As much as I’d love to do this, and as much as I agree with you about being a good example of a successful transsexual with a healthy job and family and social life, my hunch is that it’s simply not the right thing to do for my family at this time. I feel a bit selfish as I write this — I realize that I have all sorts of privilege that allows me to say no to you and to put on blinders regarding other trans people who might benefit from seeing the documentary, but I have to go with my gut feeling that it’s unwise to introduce media into a family that has worked through a lot of issues, but that still has far to go, including two boys entering puberty.

I remain happy to help your production company with background material and with other interesting ideas. For example, my local PFLAG chapter has a very progressive approach to trans people in addition to its historically activist stance around parents and friends of lesbian and gay family members. If you ever do a documentary about PFLAG or about supporting diversity in the Bible Belt, our chapter would be a great place to start.

In any event, please accept my apologies and convey my regrets to your producer.

Joyce

 

80,000 Pages

The TransLate blog just hit 80,000 page views (see 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, and 70,000 for historical context). The period of November 26th, 2009 to April 1, 2010 is 17 weeks, which represents a slow pace with a few search engine hits and a few spikes when someone new discovers the blog.  There hasn’t been a lot to write about, at least regarding transsexual transition, and maybe that is a signal that it’s time to move on.  I don’t know. Here are some statistics and lists that graphically show the recent trends.

Lower down, I’ll share with you which pages were most popular and what sort of searches people conduct to find the blog.

Here’s a visual look at the blog since its inception, month-by-month, the initial slow growth coinciding with a slow coming out process, followed by the lofty peaks of April (5076 views that month) as I disclosed my transsexual transition plans to everyone, followed by a lull in May and another set of peaks probably coinciding with my facial feminization surgery in late June 2008. There was a little hump of interest in July – September, after which the blog has seen fairly steady volume of between 2000 and 3000 views per month. There’s an uptick in July and August as I write about my GRS in Trinidad (who doesn’t like to read about surgery, right?), and then there hasn’t been a lot of action since then.

Translate Month-by-Month Page Views

And here’s a graph of the week-by-week look, which WordPress picks up in mid- to late-2009.

Week-by-Week since November 2009

Finally, just for fun, this third chart is a time-series graph covering just the past 30 days’ of stats.

Daily Page Views, most recent 30 days

What do people read? Here are the top posts for the past 30 days (views > 1)

Top Posts for 30 days ending 2010-04-02 (Summarized)

2010-03-03 to Today

Title	Views
Home page	1,521
Catalyst	77
Trans 101	73
About	36
The Pilot’s Scarlet Letter	35
Suits Me	25
Marriage	21
Changing the M to F	20
Words of Marriage and Union	14
Trans-spotting	13
Name and Sex at the FAA	12
The Feminine Mistake	11
Parenting	10
Gender Issues “Disqualifying Conditions”	9
Knowing at the Morning After House	8
Gender Discrimination Survey	8
FFS Assessment by Alexandra	7
FAA Bureaucracy and Web Misinformation	7
Letters	6
Public Denial	6
50,000 Pages	6
Just Joyce	6
Trans-gendered: Theology, Ministry, and	6
Kids and Joyce	6
Nothing At All	6
Invisible Party Dress	5
20,000 Pages	5
Narrative Erasures	5
40,000 Pages	5
FAA Issues Resolved	4
Mike and Christine	3
You Look Good in My Skirt	3
This is the Dawning…	3
30,000 Pages	3
Makeover at MAC	3
The Rest of GRS Hospital Stay	3
Praying for General Relief	3
Electrolysis	3
Finishing the Letter	2
Fire	2
A Little Help From My Friends	2
New Year’s Meme	2
Birth	2
Industrial Strength Electrolysis	2
Facing Change, Changing Face	2
What is Laser Like?	2
This is a Photograph of Me	2
Feels Like Grief	2
RadFem Womyn-Only Spaces	2
Facing East (part 1)	2
Gender Identity in Obama Administration	2
Authentic vs. Legitimate	2
70,000 Pages	2
60,000 Pages	2
Incognito	2
EU Says Trans* Discrimination Unacceptab	2

 

Kids and Joyce

Only a few minutes ago, our two kids, Lane (13) and Ezra (11) were at each other’s throats on the first day of Christmas vacation, swinging pecan branches at each other and calling each other retard, stupid, and idiot. After breaking them up and asking them to help me with something, they settled down to their tasks. As I was getting dressed in my room, I heard the sound of playing, of make-believe. Lego spaceships and cries of “oh no, I’m hit” and “check out this cannon” filled the house, and it reminded me of earlier times with smaller kids, maybe toddlers, laughing and singing.

It was a wonderful moment listening to the kids. One of them had on a Halloween wig with tight curls designed to turn you into Napoleon Dynamite, and he took it off to make the other brother wear it, saying, “You wear it — it’s too hot.” And the other boy, not missing a beat, said, “Now you know how Joyce feels.”

They continued playing with Legos, happy, oblivious, just kids, leaving me with a host of swirling feelings.

Nothing is straightforward for me, and the joy I felt at their childhood, their clear empathy with me and my wig, and their total easiness about me and my transition and my name — all of this joy was mixed with a sense of melancholy. I recalled a house filled with small children, a house with a mother who was a woman and a father who was a man, a house populated with normal, ostensibly happy people, and I felt for the thousandth time the sense of guilt I have at having derailed this image, this story, this normalcy, even as I feel a new story being created around a new family. I feel a sadness at becoming “Joyce” more and more and “Dad” less and less, even as I rejoice that the kids have adapted so well, have accepted me as I am.

You will recall the great compromise we hammered out called the “Just Joyce” plan. It has worked so well that I sometimes fear erasure as the cost of family success. It’s a life I can live with, but it also involves negotiating among my past, present, and future selves without emplotting my life as a tragedy, a comedy, a thriller, or any other prefabricated genre, and that’s something I continue trying to figure out.