Poetic License

WARNING: If you are transphobic or trans-exclusionary, save yourself some time and move on.

My life has been a wild ride, and I think that is what happens when your insides don’t match your outsides. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be one of the brothers in my family. Instead, I was dressed in frills, pink, hair in ringlets, lace-trimmed bobby socks, and patent leather shoes. Had I had options, I would have been more than a tomboy. I would have been a boy. I would have been more than the girl who knew how to work on cars. I would have been the guy who knew his way around an engine.

That’s me on the right, at 18. For 61 years, I’ve been living a life someone else designed for me, but I’m somewhat too old to change now. Instead I am living vicariously through my friends Stevie, Karen, Skye, and others. I don’t want to be a drag king, though every Halloween now I dress as a male rock star. I dig it. I was telling Skye I hate to look in the mirror and see someone who looks like my mother staring back at me. It doesn’t look like me. Before cancer, I was strongly considering transitioning. Then cancer came, and hormones became a very dicey proposition. So here I am. A silver-haired female with scarred boobs and a chemo belly.

It could be that more than half my issues with weight, self-love, and health have been due to the dysphoria. But after I started to inch out of the trans closet, I lost some people in my life and some just pulled pretty far back. A large part of the lesbian community is trans-exclusionary. Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERF) who don’t want men or “men” in their space. I get part of that. Many of us have been hurt by men in our lives, through anything from verbal abuse to sexual abuse. But I have a great fondness for my trans-sisters.

I dated one of my transgender friends once. The reason we didn’t stick is because of personality traits, not because of anything to do with her trans-ness. As I grow older, I find myself more and more attracted to transwomen. Part of that, I think, is because I love the two halves. The fact that they started out life assigned male doesn’t bother me a bit. The fact that their bodies are not female from birth doesn’t bother me a bit. They’re my friends and they are beautiful. Beautiful!

If I had one wish, it would be that they (and I) could live authentically in the world without fear of harm. It always blows my mind how much some of the lesbian community hates transwomen. It has alienated me from many potential groups of friends. Most of my friends in Maryland are cool with it, but when I went on my last Olivia cruise, many women on the chat board said horrible things. They made terrible remarks and said there hadn’t better be any “men” on the cruise, because the Olivia cruises were for women only. (Not strictly true, and Judy Dlugacz said as much.) That is the type of thinking that has resulted in me being somewhat estranged from larger groups of lesbians. Transitioning myself would have meant I wouldn’t be welcome either. TERFs are exclusionary against transmen, too. It’s all fine if you’re doing drag, but if you come out as trans, get ready for some hate being thrown at you. I figure those people aren’t my tribe. More and more, I realize that straight (open-minded) people and transfolk are my tribe, along with my open-minded lesbian friends.

One thing I can say for myself is that I have lived life fully. I haven’t set up barriers between me and experience, between me and love. That doesn’t stop other people from setting up barriers, though.

I don’t drink (more than a very, very occasional beer) or smoke or hang out in clubs. I don’t discriminate against transfolk. I don’t misgender people. I call them what they ask me to call them and do my damndest to respect who they are. It’s hard enough to exist in this world. Why would we ever want to make it harder for our fellow humans? And this is why you’ll never find me at a women’s festival!

With that, I’m going to leave you with some good trance (trans?) music for your Tuesday. Enjoy, and whatever else you may be, be kind!

Namaste, Jude