To the best of our knowledge: Transgender identity

While working out this afternoon, I listened to a new audiobook download, To the best of our knowledge: Transgendered Identity... more like a download of a radio show from Public Radio International. You can read about it here.

One of the featured interviews was with Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV front (wo)man and pangender artist Genesis P-Orridge who is basically turning his body into a rebellion against DNA. He prefers the pronoun (s)he, had his breasts implanted and modeled after his wife's breasts (they had breast augmentation surgery on the same day (sigh...how romantic) and each underwent cosmetic surgery to appear alike)and argues that our bodies are machines and should be fitted in any way shape or form we feel is appropriate.

How would scales and experiments in skin types be adaptable to space travel, living in harsh conditions, etc. Utterly fascinating.

So when I got home I looked Genesis up and found many images that chronicle her stages of androgyny/hermaphroditic transition, as you can see above. Absolutely inspired.

Segment one was excellent, as well, a ftm and his feminist critic/professor mother about his sex change. Wonderful to hear from a feminist perspective.

Will report on segment three tomorrow.

View from the box

Whether carapace or quills
growth must occur.

To look in the mirror and be separated
from the body that stares back
erodes all defenses.

The bottling up of the voice that slips between gender
is as old as story itself

as Aesop's hare, who dared the sun
that he could hold his voice longer than the sun could shine,
and in doing so nearly lost his ability to trick his enemies.
He was given a pretty tail instead of his shout
to warn his mates.
Now he relies on speed, luck
and the ability to become as still as sun in midday,
the flash of tail that had once only belonged to the females
of their breed.

Adaptation is underrated, I'm thinking, and outside
the bathroom mirror, the rabbits eat, freeze, eat, and dart.

Like the rabbit I too eat, freeze, eat, and dart.

But the edges of that box are visible to me,
and what lies beyond
is too good to pass up.

These are a few of my favorite things

Sonic Youth. Marilyn Monroe. Crossdressing.

Ah, pop a top. Kick heels, toss back the darkness!

Trying to make sense of what we know we cannot

TRANSLATION: DRESSING

When ruffled panties cut with satin slide over skin
The third eye opens and the heart is flush.

Muscle movements tighten like a schoolgirl crush
Skin responds
like exposed nerves in a tooth you forgot
while eating ice cream once,
it hurts but
in a good way, like sunshine and sunburn.

Then sucking backwards into the gravity of the clothes,
The gravity of the heels, which like an anchor
Lock the hips.

Sometimes it is as if the tide had knocked you on your knees
and ripped you out,
the beach deep
behind you
The stars
out and bright
as a lung spark

Sometimes you can make it back, sometimes
You’re adrift for days.

Dear God, can one live for so many years without stepping over the edge?

Tiresias

Tiresias was the blind prohphet from mythology. As a young man he struck two snakes making love and was punished by Hera and transformed into a woman (the first sex change). He was a woman for 7 years (and a famouas prostitute for the oracle of delphi) and had two daughters (who could both switch genders at will). She was transformed back into a male after again coming across two snakes, this time killing the male. His symbol, like Mercury/Hermes is the caduceus--twin snakes climbing a staff--the symbol for male and female.

This poem is from the perspective of Theresea....Tiresias as a woman

THE CHANGLING MOTHER EXPLAINS


Act like a man and be cheap
once a week,
it’ll help when you have to switch.

That bitch, the oracle, is often out of tune.
Learn how to pluck the right notes
from her throat. You’ll both be naturals,

you were born into this;
I wasn’t. Like waking up
to remember that somewhere beyond the scrim

there was another life
waiting for you like a copperhead
dozing on a rock, waiting

like a poison ring to open.
Word to the wise,
no playing both sides

there’s no luck in it.
You might get confused
if you try to befriend a lover

in the wrong body.
Be ready to avoid a beating, a rape.
That’s what stones do when they meet someone

like us; for to understand
what our flesh knows they have to swing
at our skulls. They must have our brains

on their skin
like wet cornmeal.
We’re so queer they must smash us

to acknowledge the body which is chorus
and congress of man, woman, and sky.
Remember, a woman’s great secret is that she is beautiful

without anything; especially a man,
or a child. Where a man
needs proof he exists.




If you haven't checked out Gender Variant Biography...get lost for a few hours.

When I was 11

Slipped between two genders
like a boy's slender foot
into his mother's shoe

those few shards of afternoons
skin blending
into the glassy light of a long mirror

was to bridge a divide
and guard against death
and offer a voice to both sides.

The Crossdresser and TG as maverick, as artist

The Crossdresser/Transgendered as Maverick. As artist.
What does it mean to be T?: Day to day living.


Closet Fashionista? Like a Cylon switched on
to stare down the lady in my head that runs the controls.

What is this waking life? This fiddle faddle illusion?

Often I am shocked at myself. A grown man, at least clearly presenting as a man, masculine in most regards except
for flourishes, finishes of the wrist, of foot, or in vocal tones
and pitches, something like a note stuck between
registers.

The older I get the more feminine I feel. Often
The more masculine too.

**

Day to day working loving managing family being a husband/wife spouse
I try not to think about being T,
Or presenting as such and such and so and so.

What it means, if anything, is empowerment to bridge roles
and if you are transitioning, biology.

It’s special if you allow it. Because in the span of fifteen minutes can
Split firewood with masculine strength and tender caress my wife
With more sensitivity than I did since I came out of the closet
And just admitted to myself that my spirit
Had one leg in each world.

**

For us married T people our spouses are an ever presence of strength,
Inspiration and anxiety.

My wife is stylish, and though she wishes not to see me presenting as woman

I cannot blame her. After all would you want your spouse to present masculine?

Probably not. Maybe so, in any regards one must respect her wish.

So to say I am completely worry free in w/r/t my marriage,

I do worry that sometimes she sees me as less
That in being honest with myself

I have not grown, in her eyes,

But shrunk.

And sometimes I am surprise. For Valentine’s Day she gave me a hand-bag.

Flirty, simple, cotton, girly, and masculine. Perfect for jeans, my 3 inch sandals, and a cute top, or a floral skirt, which I favor.

**

As a teenager I rejected materialism, but embraced a femmy style, long hair, long nails, lots of hippie jewelry and colors. I often wore more jewelry than my gfs.

No one questioned me then.

But in the work grown up money and suit world of adulthood

For a grown man to wear pearls is weakness.

**

Unfortunately

For most of us being T on a daily basis is stealth

Is a black bag of tricks,
Is a warm spot in the belly
Is a secret written on the page in a room of illiterates
Is paint mixing on the palette
A song in the air, the wine warm, the weather holding.

**

It’s interesting. And I allowed myself to block these memories and experiences. Repress them.

Stress hormones help create complex and strong neural networks for memories to be stored; which is why repressed memories can come back strong and visceral, despite having happened decades ago.

**

I always felt like a phony around my male friends.
Especially when conversation switched onto an Alpha male line
And like a tramp, I began to fade to the back of the car
As more and more citizens jumped on board.

With the women I feel like an outsider.
Wanting them, and wanting to be them,
and knowing that if I was one of them,
I would not be welcomed in their arms.

**

Sometimes it is the sound of bells
The caress of a fine dress
That swirls the motes into the air

Freedom, o free, o pulsing heart