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Selfish. Self(ish). Self.

  • Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:47 pm

As my wife reaches for the cheese and asks for the grater, my mind switches into immediate lowest-level punning: ‘Grater love has no man …’ Nobody laughs, it isn’t funny, just a vain attempt to lighten things up. But it’s a reminder that St Paul did say that there is no greater love shown than to lay your life down for a friend. Great in battle. But would you (other than instinctively) jump under a bus to push someone out of the way? How good a friend would they have to be? So good you hope they might survive but, if not, at least you’d go together?

The worst choice I can imagine is when a lifelong partnership is switched from equality and easy unconditionality into self-preservation. One partner is struck down through no fault or misdeed of their own. What should the other do?

My dread question about being transgender, married and with a family, is why anyone should ever have to decide between self-authenticity and the greatest love in their life. How can anyone possibly decide that? Gender is so incredibly powerful that it defines who and what you are. Once you realise that you do not have the heart and soul of a man, you really, truly, cannot go on in mimicry of being a man. To do so would be so diminishing of self that you would not truly be able to love freely and unconditionally yourself. Whether it is the Christian ‘love you neighbour as yourself’, or the Buddhist Metta Bhavana that begins with your own happiness and well-being, we know that loving people now and love themselves and that bitter, angry people do not.

So what do you do? Jump under the bus so the loved one doesn’t have to face the consequences, or stand on the kerb while your gender bus runs them over? I don’t honestly think anyone who hasn’t faced such an identity crisis can imagine how such a situation can arise.

And it is all about self.

Self

Have you ever even needed to think about self, about what and who you are and perhaps why? Or do you live an altrusitic life, saving little for yourself – giving, thoughtless of return? Or like most of us, do you invest, with friends, with family, with certain material things – just so you feel physically and emotionally equipped to give generously to others and find enough space to replenish and do it again? How much sense of self do you have – not just things you can do, your personality, how you get along – but in the long dark reaches of the night, or in the ecstasy of a peak achievement? Being transgender forces you to find truths most people never even know to look for. We see differently because we have to.

I don’t think many of us believe to a great extent in self-denial. After all, we are precious beings, whether or not we sense a place in anything greater or numinous or spiritual. We need enough of self in order to be giving, in order to empathise, in order to understand what it is like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. We need self simply to love at all.

I need a sense of self, a bit of self-actualisation if you like, if I am to fulfill any purpose in being human.

Self(ish)

Anything less is to fall into a grey zone of being self(ish) – never quite realising what it’s all about, just making headway, doing enough, staying alive, keeping out of trouble. Am I being self(ish)? I hope not! It is neither as noble as being a self-denialist, nor as ruthless as being selfish, but it surely isn’t what we are here in this life for. If we all do nothing but put ourselves behind everyone else, the queue or front line, whatever, simply recedes forever in a false etiquette of ‘after you; no, after you!’

So if I stand ahead of another to pay for my milk (OK, or beer) is that an act of selfishness? Again, I don’t think so. It is in my interests to pay when it’s my turn, but it is also in my family’s interests that I arrive home before letting everyone else (presumably happy to be selfish) go first. It would be selfish to jump the queue as if I was more privileged or important a person.

Selfish?

OK, you know what I’m getting at. I realised – I finally gave in and stopped fighting – I am transgender. I do not fit the picture or the presumption always given about the nature of my self. For me, it is an awareness in episodes, an understanding in retrospect, from over 40 years. That is a long time to be only self(ish), and I’m not exactly jumping the queue out of a sense of self-importance now. I am gradually emerging, asserting who and what I am, trying to find the kindest way to become whole.

And yet I am not the first to be thought of as selfish: how dare I think I can be transgender and upset so many lives by being myself? How could I have lived so long out of my true self that I couldn’t continue in self-denial? It’s so selfish to have a self! Yes: I should jump under the bus so the bus is stopped.

As if, just because self is at our centre, we are therefore self-centred.

It’s all about life choices, and things you do not have a choice about. After that it’s about other people’s choices; personal and moral. It’s about their self, their self(ish) compromises, and selfishness. We can all, in anger, misunderstanding, loss and grieving, think of each other as selfish as we face a new perspective on our own self, realised for what it is, hardened from self(ish)ness into true self.

Choice

I do not feel I have a choice if I am to be true to my self. It is no more choice than a disability or an injury that was completely not my fault. The problem is that in the case of the latter, loyalty and commitment kick in and override everything else. It isn’t a kind thing that a partner or relative ends up as a carer, but we sort of expect both might find some fulfilment in making the most of circumstances. And yet it isn’t necessarily reprehensible that some potential carers simply know they cannot cope, and third party accommodation and care is found instead. We might say ‘for better, for worse, for richer for poorer’ but do we really feel bound by that any more? No. Some caring is just too much. For all the love we want to show, it just isn’t adaptable enough. This is fact, not bitterness; many cared-for do not wish to be a burden, because they know how it would feel the other way round. But the person with MS in the wheelchair, the soldier with no legs, or the child with cerebral palsy – they are not being selfish. A little help, a lot of love, and their lives can still be rich, self can still be actualised as far as possible. Their greatest fear is to be only self(ish) and not to be loved. So what does it mean to love them while still retaining a clear sense of self? What does it mean to love a transgender person, when you know they are simply finding themselves, and your own assumptions about love, sex and gender are dropped into the melting pot?

That is one question that I cannot answer.

But I hope all my friends and family and colleagues will think more deeply about self, about being self(ish) and realise that I am not being selfish by understanding a little too late that I am really not the man they thought I was. I made a good enough job of it, I think. But I have resigned. And I cannot imagine any act of selfishness that could give rise to so many hurdles and such loss of entitlement, and grief, despite the relief and joy of finding myself. No-one would choose, in the context of this gender-binary society, ever to be transgender, except to be true to self.

Those of you who venture into Realisations can now read ‘Not like a bone’ in context.

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What is a sense of gender?

  • Posted on March 28, 2012 at 5:29 pm

A section in my book Realisations is called ‘A Sense of Gender’, and it is a really curious thing. What is it to be self-aware of being a man or being a woman? Is it just a feeling of consonance with others who have bodies like yours? Or perhaps dissonance with those who don’t? That seems a bit thin somehow. I am sure that with a bit of research I could unearth psychological studies that would dip into the gendered mind, the ways we think, that place us more comfortably in one camp or the other. Except that drags us kicking into the binary conflict that simply doesn’t suit everyone.

Early in realising who I really was, I used to play this mind game: if it was a ‘Manday’ rather than a ‘Chooseday᾿ and I closed my eyes against what I was wearing, how did I feel? Hmm. Nothing really. And to begin with in my female clothes I looked as different to myself as I would to any friend. Not bad, but certainly different. Did that make me feel more like a woman and less like a man underneath? Well, it helped.

Close the eyes. Ask: what does it mean for anyone to feel like a man / woman?

There is a physical awareness, perhaps a bra wire is digging in or trousers feel tight, or maybe the lightness of a dress brushes the skin differently, and parts of your body feel the particular familiarity or unfamiliarity of something. But that doesn’t make me feel like a man or like a woman. It doesn’t make me feel gendered or placed in a role or a persona at all. I just feel like me. How do you feel?

Now put me in a party. There are the women clustered in one place, and there are the men in another. Where do I head to feel most congruent? Off to join the men and share the latest sport / cars / job news? Or to the women to find out what’s really going on, how they are feeling, what’s going on in their families? Join the first group and I don’t really know what to talk about, unless we turn to a passion like the environment, or poetry. Join the others and I am an outsider; perhaps the conversation changes because a man is present.

A man? What man? I look around and then realise it must be something about me. I have a sense of gender from the inside, everyone else has a perception that is different. My gender is visibly in the wrong kind of body. It isn’t even ambiguous enough, because I got to wear the grey trousers and the striped shirt.

There have been too many days when I have been obliged to present as a man when wanting to write about being female. What happens if someone comes up on Skype, I have the cam on, and Andie, the strongly female friend is sitting there in the wrong trousers, perhaps even unshaven, with man specs? Is that a betrayal of my sense of gender? I judge not, because I am already uncomfortable, not even looking at myself.

What do you feel when you wake up in a morning. OK, certain things can happen to a man that remind him of his gender at that time of day. But aside from that, are we aware? Does it matter? No, so long as we are content with what happens next and get on with the day, doing what we do naturally.

Kate Bornstein is producing a new edition of her Gender Workbook, and has been Tweeting regularly to gain a contemporary view of how people feel about aspects of transgender. Central is the question ‘how do you identify?’. I was not alone in a very assertive, ‘I know what I am not!’ Interesting, because I hear it more and more. I am not a man. I’m quite happy to be called transgender, but do not call me a man! It isn’t that I disown what I have lived as, and I don’t hate men. I just know I do not belong to that tribe.

Which is interesting.

For some time, mainly because it was so easy to do so, I went to the Brighton Buddhist Centre to practice meditation. Mindfulness. Being present, in the moment. Just sitting, being aware of how things are. And in that state of mind, I am aware of a physical state of being a woman. Funny that.

Over a year ago, a friend did some therapy with me in similar vein, and my first comment afterwards, reviewing the inner experience, was that throughout I had visualised myself as a woman in a white dress. I don’t know why. It wasn’t suggested, it wasn’t in the commentary. It wasn’t supposed to be there at all. The only guidance I had was to gain a sense of belonging, and to listen to myself. And there I was.

Now, having just presented myself and my intentions, in the space of a week, to well over 100 musicians, and in public as it were, I had another unexpected experience. My previous blog post covered the matter of whether it was courage or not. No, this was an awareness that somehow, enough people were just recognising what I was saying, and more than just respecting that, were welcoming me as a woman. I am perfectly aware that when I appear for the first time in that last bastion of my male life, many may find it hard to adjust. I will be a novelty, a curiosity, a not-quite-sure and what do I say to – her? But as the pronouns started to be used already, and people were writing my new name, I was so deeply at home with myself, it felt like I had been dragging an anchor and now it held.

Yes, I know what a sense of gender means – though I’m not sure I’m a whole lot better at describing it.

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Rebranding

  • Posted on March 21, 2012 at 9:23 am

I play trumpet in several bands, and one of them has been thinking about its logo – its brand identity – for quite some time. As a contemporary wind band, the old logo of an ancient harp and classical laurels aren’t exactly what we are about, and in the last couple of years we really have become probably the best of our kind in the region, so we should look the part. Quite what it is that makes us unable to design, or have designed for us, a logo, I’m not sure. Maybe there is a fear that someone might ‘win’ and someone else might feel rejected – or just that not everyone will like what we end up with and someone will be blamed. I designed and run the website, and I do the publicity artwork, so I’m frustrated that I can’t update it with an image that portrays us better. I feel I’m bursting at the seams for want of a resolution.

Yes, that is all true, but it is also an analogy. Now a little story.

Yesterday [my friend a trombone player] met a woman in a doctor’s waiting room. He had never met her before, but she recognised him, and when she came out, they sat and had a chat for five minutes until he went in. Of course, he had recognised her name when called, but it was a name that will not be called again at that practice. Strangely, it was the least embarrassing meeting she had ever had in a doctor’s waiting room.

Today, that same woman came to another practice, to rehearse for the next concert with her friend on the trombone, and her friends on trumpet, flute and clarinet. But before doing so, she erased her identity, kicked off her heels and dressed as a man. Everyone recognised her.

But she is weary of waiting rooms. Tired of the rebranding that never seems to arrive. Sad that she is only recognised when rubbed out.

I am that woman. And the observant will have noticed that it is my new name and my new email on all my websites. They will have noticed that I won a poetry prize with the wrong name. If they Googled that name they would have found me for poetry, for book reviews, for being a publisher, and for this blog. The observant will have noticed pierced ears, painted nails, plucked eyebrows. And readers of a previous blog post will know the pain that the erasures cause.

Last night, with another band, I had a lovely exchange with a bassoon player, in which we described our ‘differences’ which are entirely normal to us. I guess admitting to being transgender does open some doors, even if it closes others. I could have given her such a big hug! But her reply was two-fold: first, why did I dress as a man if this is how I am? The second was that I had great courage. The first made sense, hence this story. The second I always reject. This is not courage, this is just being authentic. If we can’t be true to ourselves, we are not living the one life we have been given, as it should be lived: as only we can. This is not bravery any more, this is just giving in.

I identify as transgender, and I have been living as a woman increasingly for over a year, dealing with a lifetime’s discomforts and 40 years of not being able to understand why, or what I could do about it. I am at peace with myself, while I know the profound consequences it is having on my nearest and dearest. But it is all the friends who have been so supportive and reassuring, that have given me a sense of trust and a freedom to present my true self in hope of acceptance.

This is not Tootsie or Mrs Doubtfire. If you want a name to look up, it’s gender dysphoria: it’s a question of gender identity, not of sexual orientation. It is not a psychological disorder and it is not a product of nurture. Something in how I was born means that for all the body I have, my sense of who I am does not quite match. We are all happy to talk of women with strong masculine identities, how they wear the trousers, or succeed in a man’s world. And we are all happy to talk of men who clearly have a strong feminine side. What we never think about is what percent of opposite-genderedness we are comfortable with? Ten per cent? What about 50 per cent? What about a man with a 75 per cent feminine side? What about the 90 per centers, who for all their physiology, cry out that this is not what they are on the inside, in their soul?

As I begin to present at band practices as a woman, I expect to be spoken of as ‘she’ and ‘her’. But the last thing I want is to be a distraction: I am only there to play music after all! I understand that I shall be a curiosity for a while, but one thing is incredibly important to me: if anyone has a question, I want them to talk to me, not to discuss me as some kind of oddity or make me a subject of speculation. They can ask me anything that I can ask them in return. Deal? I hope so, because if the estimated 1 in 4,000 of us is touched by similar gender identity issues, I am actually a lot more normal than any of them might suppose. In fact I may well not be the only transgender person they know: it’s just that I choose to be visible.

Tonight the band has an AGM. That usually means a poor turnout! But tonight I shall read this out, and those who aren’t there can come here instead and read it. I don’t think we shall resolve the band identity tonight, but I do hope that I can now stop erasing my own.

And finally, a big thank you to all those who already know, and who have been so supportive and encouraging. It means a great deal to me.

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Keeping up appearances

  • Posted on March 15, 2012 at 4:26 pm

Today I bought a Daily Mail for the first time in ages. It was because there was a story of how Jane Fae and her daughter Tash came to terms with Dad being transgender. I wish the trauma in our house had been so easily resolved – but envy will get me nowhere.

On the way, I called in at a print shop where I’d been and got a good deal the day before. And the bank to drop some cheques in. Well that was easy: at the bank was the branch manager with whom I’d arranged a business account a couple of months earlier, so she knew the woman presenting the cheques, recognised me, and remembered probably her first openly transgendered client. Yesterday might have been different.

I slid along to the print shop next door, and my first explanation was ‘Sorry: I was dressed as a man yesterday: I know, it can be confusing’, but she was so totally OK about it, I didn’t need to say. Maybe I was hoping she wouldn’t recognise me! But then I wanted her to remember the deal we’d made. We had a lovely chat instead.

That was all after yet another visit from a heating engineer to fix our central heating. Very prompt service, but he met the woman of the house this morning, because yesterday I was expecting to have to crawl around the loft and a sludgy header tank, so I dressed (or didn’t) to do that. The pink blouse and denim skirt didn’t faze him one bit. ’Nah, don’t worry about that, doesn’t bother me!’ He sees all sorts probably, and I didn’t look like I was going to proposition him! We talked about the technical details of heating systems, tuning old cars etc. instead. He was so pleased to talk to someone who actually understood!

What he found today was that the last man in had wrongly diagnosed a faulty pump and replaced it – upside down. I had before and after photos and an invitation form for CheckaTrade. In a couple of hours, the first man was back, humbly giving the pink lady a cheque for £190 reimbursement!

I brought the Daily Mail back home to ‘leave around’, in case it helps break the deadlock. Jane Fae had an interesting blog this morning too, comparing those young trans people we know and love who are sooo young and girly, we just feel a poor second; middle-aged women who, because they look like middle-aged women, look a bit more like middle-aged men than girly-girls. Actually I think Jane looks very creditable. But the comments about her under the Daily Mail online were as awful as ever. People who, in the anonymity of the Internet, find it necessary to be very personal, very derogatory and rude, and feed off each other in showing how utterly ‘normal’ they are. (They don’t do this anywhere else. You won’t catch any of them walking up to a less-than-attractive woman in the high street, just to tell them they look ugly, or to someone with a disfigurement to tell them their plastic surgery has been a waste of NHS money that should have been spent on them instead.)

Well, today I felt more normal than that. I am, after all, just being myself, and keeping up appearances.

It’s just that I have a beautiful grown-up very girly-girl daughter who can’t see me. Here’s another poem from the forthcoming Realisations volume:

 

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Trans parent

  • Posted on March 15, 2012 at 4:23 pm

There is nothing so opaque as being
a trans parent. And yet, in familiarity,
they see right through you. Able only to see

in a distance who you were, without
resting on your heart. It’s hard
to understand whether a father left off

caring, understanding or being strong
when somewhere, inside this not-mother
a voice speaks, vulnerable as they.

I shall never pass here, only be different –
as if swallowed, digested, absorbed
by someone uninvited to their home.

I have become thin – a veil on their whole
lifetime, from first blue-eyed recognition
to this struggle with a strangeness.

So thin, so hard to focus on, that I am
deep as an ocean, clear as water, a sea
through which a seahorse passes unseen.

2012 © Andie Davidson

From the new collection Realisations.

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